"How many times can one heart break?"  That's the first line of the song "Mended" by Matthew West.  I had prayed the other day that if God wanted me to write my heartbreak story as a testimony of His healing power, faithfulness, and love, that He would give me the first sentence of the story. The next day, I heard "Mended" for the first time and knew it was the answer to my prayer.

I'll begin by providing some background information about my life before Christ:  Confusion, fear, OCD, extreme selfishness, sin, temper tantrums, more sin, drunkenness, sexual immorality, dabbling in new age witchcraft, more confusion, stress, complete lack of self control, fornication, abortion, verbally abusive boyfriends, more confusion, more sin!  You get the picture!

So, needless to say, when I finally got saved at 31 years old, God certainly had His work cut out for Him!  Thankfully, however, I had been literally brought to my knees big time and was an eager and willing student.

I devoured scripture and prayed like crazy daily because I desperately needed my mind to be transformed and healed by the Great Physician.  My own ways had led to misery and disaster, so I went after Jesus with my whole heart. 

After a few years of this wonderful new way of life, I began to sense that God was interacting with me, so to speak.  My days began to be filled with delightful coincidences that seemed to be God letting me know that He was thinking of me.  Well, every time this happened, I was overjoyed and simply could not get enough of these little "love notes" from the Lord!

 
For example, one day I was singing along with a song playing in my car by Shania Twain.  (I would play romantic songs in my car and pretend that God and I were singing to one another.  I realize that sounds goofy, but it's true!) This particular song was a fun love song with a car racing theme.  It had lyrics like, "You make my motor run!" and "If you want to win it (my love), there's no speed limit!"  I then drove into a parking lot and saw a car covered with hearts and "I Love You" written all over it!  At times like this, I felt completely overwhelmed with the way God was showering me with little signs of His love!

Frequently during this season in my life, the coincidences that kept occurring with me involved romantic scripture from the "Song of Solomon", as if God was letting me know that Mr. Right was on his way into my life!  I became very excited about this idea and jumped to the conclusion that God was referring to someone from my church named John, whom I had a gigantic crush on. At times John seemed to like me too, and I was overjoyed that he would soon be my boyfriend (or so I thought!)  I foolishly blabbed to my church friends that John and I were meant to be.

When it became clear to me that John was actually interested in another woman from our church, I was devastated and embarrassed.  I was also terribly confused because I was so sure of what God had shown me!  I cried and poured my heart out to the Lord, "Why, why, why?!"

I received my answer through another "Song of Solomon" coincidence when I watched a movie called, "Only You."  In the movie, Marisa Tomei plays a woman who takes a wild ride of confusion and desperation through the streets of Venice in search of whom she thought was meant to be her one true love.  Her heart is broken over and over again when she jumps from one wrong conclusion to another and finally realizes that her true love was someone whom had been there all along supporting her in her mad search for Mr. Right.  
Song of Solomon 3 says:

On my bed by night
I sought him whom my soul loves;
    I sought him, but found him not. 

 I will rise now and go about the city,
    in the streets and in the squares;
I will seek him whom my soul loves.
    I sought him, but found him not. 

 The watchmen found me
    as they went about in the city.
“Have you seen him whom my soul loves?”

Scarcely had I passed them
    when I found him whom my soul loves.
I held him, and would not let him go
    until I had brought him into my mother's house,
    and into the chamber of her who conceived me.

 I felt that God was showing me through the movie and through scripture that His promise to me was true but I had just assumed it was John He was pointing to, when it was actually someone yet to come!

So naturally, when I met a wonderful, handsome Christian man (Shawn), while visiting my parents in Iowa, I assumed that he was the one God had been telling me about!  Shawn and I dated long distance for a few months, and I was on top of the world with joy that my dreams and God's promise to me were coming to pass!  Shawn and I decided that God had brought us together and that I should move from Long Beach, California back to Iowa (where I grew up).

Moving was a huge decision because my life in California was amazing.  I lived near the beach in an adorable little house with a little flower garden outside my bedroom window, and I had many wonderful Christian friends, whom I loved dearly.  I decided, however, that moving was a small price to pay in order to be with my one true love whom God had chosen just for me.  Also, I now had even more incentive to make the move in order to further my relationship with Shawn because the Lord now seemed to be telling me that there was a glorious  wedding in store for me and that I would be having twins!

When I first arrived back in Iowa, all seemed well and good at first.  Shawn and I joined the singles' ministry from church on a road trip to some surprisingly beautiful areas of Iowa I had never seen.  It was very romantic being with Shawn and kind of a "mountain-top experience" (without actual mountains, of course).  However, once that trip was over, our relationship began to quickly slide downhill.

The pastor of our church put Shawn and me in charge of the singles' ministry, which was a big adjustment for me.  Additionally, my mother was going through double knee replacement surgery and was in terrible pain.  I began a new job working for my bother at his car dealership, and I basically crumbled under the stress of all the massive change in my life.

In addition to the stress, Shawn and I began to realize that we were completely incompatible!  Well, I was determined to make our relationship work since I had uprooted my awesome life in sunny California and moved 1,500 miles away to Iowa, of all places!  Shawn, however, was not so determined and broke up with me one cold dark January night.  To say that I was devastated, would be a HUGE understatement!  Despite our incompatibility, I still loved Shawn dearly, and I proceeded to sink into an abyss of heartache and depression.  

I believed it was God's will that I continue at the same church, and as a result, I saw Shawn quite frequently.  In fact, shortly after our breakup, Shawn was offered a position in the full-time ministry of our church and began preaching at many of the Sunday and Wednesday night services!  Many times I would just fall apart at the sight of him, and when he began dating other women from our church, I felt as if I would rather be dead.  I would actually pray some nights that I would die in my sleep.

 During this time, however, were some of the sweetest moments with the Lord that I had ever experienced. The Holy Spirit began comforting me in amazing and beautiful ways.  For example, one day at work shortly after the breakup, I had the most amazing sense that God was carrying me in His arms all day long.  And God confirmed it when I got home that night and immediately opened my Bible to Isaiah 46:3-4:

Listen to me, you descendants of Jacob,
    all the remnant of the people of Israel, 
you whom I have upheld since your birth,
    and have carried since you were born. 
Even to your old age and gray hairs
    I am he, I am he who will sustain you.
I have made you and I will carry you;
    I will sustain you and I will rescue you.
     
Wonderful comfort, revelation, guidance (and discipline) from the Holy Spirit continued during my time in Iowa. In fact, God even began to show me through scripture and coincidences that He was not at all pleased with how Shawn had handled our breakup and that justice would be served.  I was quite surprised by this revelation because I blamed myself one-hundred percent for the whole debacle.  Sure enough, Shawn began dating a woman from out of state, invited her to move to Iowa, which led to another ugly breakup, and subsequently, he was removed from his full-time ministry position at our church.

After a few years in Iowa, I began longing for a fresh start in beautiful Colorado where my sister lives with her husband and kids.  I was terrified, however, to make such a move unless I was absolutely certain it was God's will.  I agonized over this decision for quite a while because church leadership told me that I just wanted to run away from my problems.  

So, one day while driving home from work, I was thinking over the latest conversation with a church leader advising me not to "run away".  I finally surrendered my will and thought to myself, "I will do the right thing and stay here in Iowa." when suddenly a bird dropping landed on my windshield directly in front of my face with a big splat!  I knew that it was God's humorous way of telling me to listen to HIM and not man!  That was one life lesson I was more than happy to receive, and after further confirmation from the Lord, I began planning for my next big adventure out West!  

In Colorado, my heart began to finally heal, and the sunshine and beautiful mountain views filled my heart with joy.  I got a job at a law firm downtown Denver, and to make a long story short, I began dating an attorney at the firm, who claimed to be a Christian.  Once again, I thought that he must be the Mr. Right God had told me about, and once again, I was WRONG and endured another horrible heart break!  And this time, I had to face my heart-breaker every Monday through Friday!  I was shocked and dismayed that God was allowing this to happen to me AGAIN! 

My heart eventually healed again, of course, leaving me with a few more emotional scars and wondering what on earth was going on with me!

So, skip ahead several relatively stable years of singleness, doing my best to stay close to God while keeping an eye out for this mysterious allusive Mr. Right God had promised me.

At the age of 49 I began dating a man from my church named Al.  (Don't worry, this is my last sob story, and I'll keep it short!)  Basically, the cycle began again: Hope, fun, romance, excitement, elation, "This is the one God told me about!", downhill spiral, confusion, doubt, ugly breakup, heartache.  Even though I was the one to end this relationship, it was still heartbreaking and another big disappointment. 

After this last breakup, I was absolutely DONE IN and came to the sad conclusion that I had DEFINITELY NOT heard from God about marrying Mr. Right and having twins!  My biological clock was long done ticking anyway, and I decided that maybe satan had just been messing with my mind and heart all these years.   

By this time, events in the world were beginning to heat up in a big way, bringing me to the realization that that we are in the end days prophesied in the Bible.  So, I decided to focus my attention on God one-hundred percent in preparation for the bumpy ride I knew we were in for.

One night around this time, I was having dinner with a friend, and she was talking about how she believed that her son, who had died years ago, was best friends in heaven with a child of hers that she had lost in a miscarriage.  Suddenly, it dawned on me that perhaps the twins God seemed to have told me about all those years ago were not children that I would give birth to but children who are waiting for me in heaven!  Maybe I was pregnant with twins when I had an abortion back in my twenties!  I was horrified to think that I had aborted not just one baby but two, but also very hopeful that I would be reunited with them in heaven one day.

When I got home from dinner that night, I was still wondering about this intriguing possibility and turned on my computer.  I clicked to play a video on a news website, and a commercial began that I had never seen before.  There were two gorgeous young women who were twins advertising some kind of beauty product.  I thought to myself that maybe I was on to something about the twins...

I began surfing the net and came across some blogs talking about the end times and specifically about the rapture of the Bride of Christ.  I then thought to myself, "Could it be that my long-awaited wedding to my mysterious Mr. Right was actually pointing to the Bride of Christ being caught away with Jesus to the most glorious wedding in the history of the world?! 

WAS MR. RIGHT NONE OTHER THAN THE KING OF KINGS, THE LORD OF LORDS, THE HOLY BLESSED SON OF GOD, JESUS CHRIST?!

 

All at once, the mysterious puzzle pieces began falling into place!  I discovered that God had been pouring out prophetic visions and dreams to Christians all over the world about the rapture of the Bride of Christ, the Wedding Supper of the Lamb, the tribulation, and all the incredible end-time prophecies being fulfilled in OUR GENERATION!

  

Joel 2:28-29

²⁸ And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions:
²⁹ And also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my spirit.

I then came across a prophetic message that someone had received and posted in a blog, and as I read it, I felt as if the Lord was speaking to me personally:

Oh My bride, My beloved bride.

The one I love, the one who loves Me;
The one who delights in My Word and grieves not the Spirit of the living God:
I dwell within you, and I have set My stamp of approval upon your heart.
You are Mine, and I am so happy to announce that our waiting is nearly OVER!!!

The Wedding is nearly here!  The Bridegroom is emerging from His prepared chamber to fetch His prepared bride.

OH GLORY, THE TIME HAS COME!  The waiting, the longing of the Spirit and the Bride has become intense beyond description, intense beyond understanding.

GLORY! GIVE GLORY TO YHWH WHOSE PATIENCE KNOWS NO BOUNDS;YET WHOSE JUSTICE REQUIRES SWIFT ACTION!!!  The sins of the world have reached to the skies, and IT IS TIME for the King to come out from His Holy Habitation...and ACT!!!

Blessed, so blessed is My bride, My beautiful one, who has been cleansed in the blood of My righteous Son, Yahushua.  She is adorned in white robes; she has not soiled her garments by fornicating with the world. She obeys My Word by the power of the Spirit of the living God who abides in her.

Oh My bride, are you ready to fly?!!  We are so eager together, dear one.  The Spirit and the Bride are ONE, and we have been longing for His appearing, haven't we, dear one. You have made yourself ready by continually welcoming Me into your heart, giving Me complete reign in your life. You have allowed Me to purify and refine and mold your heart so that you can be ready to see your Savior's glorious face when He beckons His bride to His side!

Did you know, beloved, that HE IS EVEN MORE EAGER TO SEE YOUR GLORIOUS FACE THAN YOU ARE TO SEE HIS?! He is deeply yearning to receive you into His embrace! He is overjoyed at the prospect of seeing you in your transformed body-- healthy, vibrant, bursting with the SHEKINAH GLORY OF YHWH GOD!

Oh My bride, My precious child, My faithful son: YOU ARE DAYS AWAY FROM A MOST MARVELOUS EVENT; A MOST MARVELOUS EVENT, INDEED!

Tell them to put all their hope in the LORD JESUS CHRIST, God's own precious Son. He is their ONLY HOPE!

Scary times are near, so very near.

Tell them to CRY OUT to the One who made them; and if they are sincere, I will show them the Way to My Salvation. I will NOT forsake any who earnestly cry out to the LORD, the true God, to save them!

You can be sure that I am a GOOD, GOOD GOD.

I LOVE YOU.

Signed,
the Holy Spirit of the living God

 
At last, God was clearing my confusion and doubt and giving me rest from my years and years of waiting and wondering!  I was ecstatic beyond words, and I printed out the message so that I could read it over and over again.  Eventually, I folded the paper and placed it in my Bible.  

I believe it was the next day or shortly after that when I decided to read the Song of Solomon again.  Of course, now I would be reading this romantic book of the Bible with a whole new perspective since receiving the revelation that Jesus is my Mr. Right, my ONE AND ONLY TRUE LOVE!

I had a red pen with me to underline scripture and write notes, and it began leaking ink.  It happened to drip on the paper with my message from the Lord.  I have posted a photo of the paper below:

As you can see, the red ink "just happened" to land on this particular sentence:

Blessed, so blessed is My bride, My beautiful one, who has been cleansed in the blood of My righteous Son, Yahushua.

For me, that was confirmation from God beyond a shadow of a doubt.

MYSTERY SOLVED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The moral of this long-winded, painful, humiliating, mysterious, crazy, glorious story I have just shared with you?
   

REJOICE! JESUS IS THE HEALER OF BROKEN HEARTS, THE LOVER OF YOUR SOUL! HE IS ALWAYS AND FOREVER FAITHFUL!

And they lived happily ever after.

THE END

But it's really just the beginning....

 
 Link to the song, "Mended" by Matthew West:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Otg-5p7qug