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.

A desire is a strong feeling of wanting or wishing to have something or to see something occur. A desire can be a strong feeling that controls your emotions, your actions, and your thoughts. What are your desires today? What are the things pulling on your heart strings pleading for attention? Is it a desire for love, validation, happiness, or material things? What if I told you all those desires, all of those things that you long for are just masking the only desire that will satisfy your soul?

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.

Our country has been living through days and weeks full of heartbreak. We have seen life-altering events take place that have left people both speechless and driven to speak out. It has been a very difficult time for many families and individuals to wrap our heads around these horrifying events and the actions needed to prevent them from happening again. I am not writing this to air out my political views or voice my personal feelings. Quite honestly, that is irrelevant compared to the fact that God so badly wants to show us all His comfort and love in times such as these. That is what I want to share with you today because we all desperately need this revelation in one way or another.