Everywhere we look, we see broken hearts. The little boy is told his father has just died suddenly, and finds out later it was suicide. The young girl never sees her daddy, who is too busy playing with his mistress. A widow waits daily to hear from her son, whose work and home responsibilities “prevent” him from visiting her. Having married with high hopes for love and affection, a young wife finds that her husband has moved on to another challenge, and then to another woman. Longing for legitimate sex within marriage, a young man is crushed when his cold and critical bride rebuffs his advances. Grown children still limp through life, decades after their parents’ divorce. To such people the Good News is, “He heals the brokenhearted, and binds up their wounds [sorrows].” He delivers us from resentment against those who have abandoned, neglected, or betrayed us. As we have been forgiven, so we forgive (Ephesians 4:32). He hears our cries of grief, anger, fear, and loneliness, and rescues us from despair: “He is near to those who have a broken heart” (Psalm 34:18). He assures us that He knows how we feel, for our Lord Jesus was “a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3). As the “Captain of our salvation,” He “was made perfect through suffering” (Hebrews 2:10). This knowledge saves us from self-pity. He intercedes for us as our Great High Priest, and He does so with feeling for us: “For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15). He knows how we are tempted in our times of trial, and asks the Father to give us “mercy and … grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16). Finally, when this is sad life is over, He delivers us from our most feared enemy, death itself: “I will raise him up at the last day” (John 6:40). Meanwhile, He is already to us our very life (Colossians 3:3). So, my fellow pilgrims, let us take “everything to Him in prayer.”