“The Lord is close to the brokenhearted.” We hear this refrain in today’s psalm. The psalmist goes on to say that “the Lord confronts the evildoers,” that the Lord hears the just when they cry out. There are times in our lives when we ourselves are brokenhearted, when illness or death or divorce or failure leaves a void in our lives that seems to ache forever. It seems like life will never be the same again, and maybe it won’t. E. But one day the pain give way to new hope, even though it does not seem like it never will.
I read a reflection in Give Us This Day for this date that spoke about the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, a group of mothers and grandmothers in Buenos Aires, Argentina that witnessed the disappearance of their children, husbands, and grandchildren during the years of the military dictatorship that ruled in that country from 1976 to 1983. It is estimated that more than 20,000 people were kidnapped by the government and were killed, and the actual number may be much larger than that. But the mothers did not stand idle in their anger, frustration, and brokenheartedness. They demonstrated in the main plaza in front of the governmental buildings and continued to ask the military government about what happened to their loved ones. Eventually, the military government lost public approval and they stepped down from its position of power. The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo still exist today – I met with some of them when I studied in Argentina back in 2002.
When we are brokenhearted, we are called to have confidence in the Lord. We are to reach out to the Lord in our pain and sadness, to unite our sufferings with the sufferings that Jesus endured. The Lord reaches out to the brokenhearted in a very special way. May we never forget that.
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