There is a beautiful pink flower that emerges in my garden each spring, the bleeding heart. I love this flower and eagerly look for it to bloom each year. Its unique heart shaped design has prompted me to pray for years that the Lord might unlock the message that the perfectly formed heart-shaped flowers must carry.

As I studied these flowers and prayed, I came to realize that when they are in their perfect heart shape, they are unable to be visited by the pollinators, the bees, the butterflies and even the occasional hummingbird. The heart is completely formed but will never accomplish what flowers are designed to do, create seed for the plant. The flower appears to be perfect but it is actually sterile. The bleeding heart has two appendages at the bottom of the flower that close off access to the part of the flower where fertilization occurs. As it matures, these appendages pull back to create an opening for the flower to be pollinated. In doing so however, the perfectly shaped heart flower breaks in half. The broken open bleeding heart can now become fruitful, bearing seed for the next year.

Do you see what I see in the image of the broken heart? It is often those very things that have broken my heart that God has used most powerfully. There is no inherent glory in a broken heart. But if I risk vulnerability, if I pull back my self-protective arms and raise them up to God, if I open up my most wounded places to let Him enter in, then the place of brokenness can become a fruitful place, even a place that creates new life.

The bleeding heart has modeled its posture for me in my times of struggle. Lots of times I will process hurts and failures on my walks. A hurting child, an ailing parent, a friend’s illness, conviction of my sin, a rejection, an injustice; by lifting up my downcast arms and opening my closed fists in an act of worship and invitation, I am physically reminded to let the Lord enter into the place of brokenness, the place of the broken heart.

“The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.” Ps.34:18

What about you? Can you relate? Could it be that the very place your heart was crushed could become a place of freedom and fruitfulness? As hard as it is to emulate the bleeding heart posture, it could be the beginning of letting God do His redemptive pollinating work.

–MM