Heart to heart with the broken-hearted

Valentine’s Day is Tuesday, and if you have a beloved, all is lovely. But, if you have a broken heart at this time of the year, it’s the cruelest of all days. I once saw a Valentine’s card with the inside inscription: “Bah, phooey; who thought up this crappy, stupid day?” On the front was a picture of a heart covered in bandages and a patch.

The folks suffering the excruciating pain that love often brings can identify with the cynicism of that card and with the melancholic lyrics from The Bee Gees (1971)

 “How can you mend a broken heart?

How can you stop the rain from falling down?

How can you stop the sun from shining?

What makes the world go round?

How can you mend this broken man?

How can a loser ever win?

Please help me mend my broken heart and let me live again”

To be clear, the heart problems to which I refer have nothing to do with angina pectoris or even heartburn. It has to do with that mystical seat of emotion that controls our sometimes irrational thoughts and our often too-sensitive feelings. Along with the soul, it cannot be removed and examined by even the best forensic pathologist.

By official definition, “heartache” means “a debilitating emotional response after loss, disappointment, or relationship break-up.”

For those feeling the lonely anguish of heartache during this season of chocolates, roses, and diamonds, I wish I could give advice to the lovelorn, but no one possesses that depth of wisdom, not even Dear Abby. Love is a risk, and the only thing worse than a broken heart is vowing never to love ever again.  

On Valentine’s Day, I often think of the greatest love of all, and that’s the love of a Savior who wrote of His affection for us in the red ink of His blood. He comforts the heart that is ripped apart by romantic love, betrayal, malice, gossip, bullying, and various other evidences of our human proclivity towards inhumanity. He, too, has known that pain.

So, no advice from me. Just some suggestions on how to love. Take it for what it’s worth.

Listen without interrupting. Speak without accusing. Give without remembering. Receive without forgetting. Answer without arguing. Share without resenting. Promise without failing. Praise without fawning. Forgive without punishing. And pray for those who hurt you without ceasing.

These suggestions are scriptural, but I’m not thumping my Bible today. There’s no need. It’s all common sense. Simple, but really hard to do, especially given our ego-driven human nature.

If you have never experienced heartache, then you have never loved someone. Never been betrayed by a friend, a church, a business partner, or a sweetheart. You’ve never experienced divorce, estrangement, loss of a loved one, or defeat of a special dream.

Let’s see. How many people does that leave in this category?  I think zero percent.

1. But watch out for the toxic pill of bitterness.   

If there is any consolation for a heart in pain, it may be in the words of an African proverb: “However long the night, the dawn will break.”

 Mary Ready of Destin is a twice-retired English teacher and long-time area resident. Her columns are published on Saturdays.