up in sacrifice.” Elisabeth Elliot makes this statement in her book, Suffering is Never for Nothing. How simple, and yet how difficult to truly come to grips with.

God is love, love is sacrifice, and those sacrifices in the name of love cause us to suffer. Love and suffering are inextricably bound together. You can’t have one without the other, and our best illustration of it is the cross. Jesus went through just about the most suffering a person possibly can go through on the cross. He was humiliated, beaten, bloody, and broken. He died very publically for all to see. He was spat on, betrayed, and completely crushed.

Heartbroken. What a devastating word to attach to oneself. And in a day and age where we so fiercely guard our hearts and treat things like love and trust like it’s a privilege to bestow only on those closest to us, a word like heartbroken almost feels like an admission to carelessness or weakness. We act like it’s something to be ashamed of; like it’s something to hide.