Giving Your Broken Heart

by Autumn Dickson

We have reached the crowning jewel of The Book of Mormon. We have reached the climax, the epitome, the purpose of The Book of Mormon. Christ has arrived to reach out to His people in other parts of the world.

When Christ’s voice pierces the darkness that the Nephites and Lamanites had found themselves in, He started to teach them immediately. He proclaims the destruction, but He also invites them to come and be healed. Before He even directly appears before them, His voice teaches them that the Law of Moses has been fulfilled. Of all the things the Lord could have chosen to express with His voice through the darkness, one of the things He chose to tell them was that the Law of Moses was no longer in effect. While this may seem like a slightly less significant happening when compared to all the destruction and His literal presence amongst these people, it heralded the incoming of a higher law. It brought about the new way to draw closer to Christ, and this new way would become the standard for all the generations afterwards (including our’s). It was a big deal that the Law of Moses had been fulfilled. It is a big deal that we have been given new ways to approach Christ and learn of Him.

Christ visited the Nephites and Lamanites. Living according to His new law is how we invite Him to visit us, to make Him a part of our lives.

Here is how Christ told them about the fulfilled Law of Moses.

3 Nephi 9:19-20

19 And ye shall offer up unto me no more the shedding of blood; yea, your sacrifices and your burnt offerings shall be done away, for I will accept none of your sacrifices and your burnt offerings.

20 And ye shall offer for a sacrifice unto me a broken heart and a contrite spirit. And whoso cometh unto me with a broken heart and a contrite spirit, him will I baptize with fire and with the Holy Ghost, even as the Lamanites, because of their faith in me at the time of their conversion, were baptized with fire and with the Holy Ghost, and they knew it not.

Christ will no longer accept sacrifices according to the Law of Moses. He doesn’t want burnt offerings or the shedding of blood. He wants a different kind of sacrifice. He wants us to offer the sacrifice of a broken heart and a contrite spirit.

The way this is worded is fascinating to me. When we think of sacrifice, we often picture giving up something we really love and adore. We believe that we’re going to receive something back which is the whole reason we agree to it. However, we are still giving up something that holds worth for us.

Which is why I find this new law so interesting. I can understand why Christ would ask for a broken heart and contrite spirit. It makes sense when you understand that the Lord is trying to change us, and a willingness to change often helps that process. However, Christ specifically asked for these things as a sacrifice. What can we learn from the way He worded this?

Broken hearts hold value

If Christ is asking us to offer up broken hearts and contrite spirits as a sacrifice, it implies the idea that these things are valuable to us. If you were to list things that were valuable to you, a “broken heart” might not be at the top of the list. And yet, sometimes our actions and underlying feelings can give us greater hints about what we value than our logical minds.

For example, I can talk all day long about how much I love my kids. However, I remember an experience one day where I was praying for them. I wasn’t at my best at that particular point in my life and so I started praying that they would feel my love even though I wasn’t showing it very well at the time. I think there are appropriate times to pray for that. However, in that particular moment, the Spirit whispered to me that I had prayed for the wrong thing. I loved my kids, but I wasn’t valuing them sufficiently at that time. How could I expect the Lord to just help them feel prioritized when I wasn’t actually prioritizing them? I could talk about how much I loved them all day, but until it changed how I was acting and feeling, then I was really just loving myself. I could tell you that I loved my kids more than myself, but my actions and underlying feelings during that time period were hinting at something different.

The same goes for a broken heart. We may not consciously value our broken hearts, but why do we sometimes withhold our broken hearts? Why do we hide our vulnerability? Why do we often continue to kick against the pricks rather than allowing our spirits to feel contrite? We’re not doing it for funsies, so there must be some reason we want to hold onto these things rather than handing them over to the Lord.

I had an experience some time last year; I believe it illustrates a time when I was withholding my broken heart and when I finally released it to the Lord and the resulting experience. I want to try very hard to maintain the point of me sharing this and not get distracted by the actual subject matter. It’s important to me that we take the principle I’m trying to teach so that we can apply it to all of our different situations rather than trying to hyperfocus on what my broken heart was about.

Last year, I had a quiet moment where I started thinking about Heavenly Mother. It had never bothered me before that She was relatively unknown or that we didn’t talk about her. I hadn’t put much thought towards it up until the time I became a mother and learned what it meant to be a mother. Her role is likely far more significant than we realize, and I started to wonder if She ever felt unappreciated because everyone was so quiet about Her. She likely has much more perspective than I do, but it affected me. I held onto those feelings for a while, not willing to give up how I felt about it. It suddenly felt all wrong, and I felt very right. I held tight to that feeling of my being right.

But then I started to reflect on the relationship I had with my Heavenly Father. I thought about the Savior and how He had sacrificed so much for me. I thought about how He had shown up for me multiple times, and I reflected on how I had sincerely felt His love.

I didn’t understand why Heavenly Mother wasn’t more openly appreciated, but I decided that I’d had enough experiences with Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ that I still trusted Them. Instead of holding onto my rightness, I held onto the relationship I had with Them. I turned to pray, and I remember asking, “Why?” but how I asked that question had suddenly changed dramatically.

Rather than asking, “Why?” in my determined rightness, I asked, “Why?” but I also mentally said, “Okay.” I let my heart feel sad over the issue, and I turned to Him for comfort regarding the issue. I gave Him my broken heart.

I’m not going to go into detail regarding the answer I received. It was very personal to me, and I believe that my answer was for me. He spoke to me in a way that I understood, and it changed everything. I don’t want to talk about how He answered me. I want to highlight the fact that giving my broken heart to Him changed things for me. I had held onto my broken heart believing that I was right in doing so, but the experience of giving it up had been beautiful, and I’m so grateful I did.

Different circumstances require giving up your broken heart

I believe that with certain issues throughout our lives, it’s going to be an elaborate dance as we work towards having that kind of experience. Handing your broken heart to the Lord has to be done in your heart; it’s not something you can fake or force. It requires examining where you’re at and accepting where you’re at so that the Lord can work with where you’re at.

I have very little advice on how to go about this elaborate dance of handing your broken heart over to the Lord because that process has been so different for different circumstances in my life. The Lord has had to patiently walk me through that process because half of the time, I didn’t even realize I was withholding a broken heart. He would have to guide me in how to experience my feelings before handing them over to be worked through with Him. I guess my only true advice is to turn to Him. You can even ask Him to walk you through the process because you don’t know how to do it on your own. You don’t have to know how to hand it over to Him; He can teach you how if you ask.

I believe that handing over your broken heart can be related to issues you don’t understand in the church. I believe that it can relate to personal circumstances when you don’t understand why He allowed you to enter into certain trials. I believe that anything that can break our hearts can be taken to the Lord.

I also believe that handing over your broken heart or finding your way towards a contrite spirit can often feel like a sacrifice. You have to sacrifice your pride and question whether you see the whole picture. You have to sacrifice your desire for Him to just fix things instead of allowing mortality to take its course. You have to sacrifice your desire to keep yourself safe and allow Him to step in.

I testify that it’s worth handing over. I’ve never been disappointed when I’ve handed my heart over to the Lord. I’ve also learned that the process of truly handing my broken heart over can take years of trying and failing and patience. As I’ve accepted the need to work through things and not just come to simple, clean answers, I’ve learned that this process of submitting your heart to the Lord has been a worthwhile experience. I trust Him. When He opens my eyes to the details He has adjusted in my life, I see that He has never let me down. Just like with any sacrifice, the Lord offers more than He asks for.

Autumn Dickson was born and raised in a small town in Texas. She served a mission in the Indianapolis Indiana mission. She studied elementary education but has found a particular passion in teaching the gospel. Her desire for her content is to inspire people to feel confident, peaceful, and joyful about their relationship with Jesus Christ and to allow that relationship to touch every aspect of their lives.

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