…So you’re feeling pretty broken?

I’m so sorry. I know what it’s like to feel reckless, alone, scared, anxious, confused, left behind, useless, overwhelmed, and empty. Is there anyway to get over it? The past feels so present and so painful. It can feel like it happened to you and it happened because you either deserved it or it was going to happen to you sooner or later. It happened, and you might feel like you’re nothing and you will never be happy. Where do you stand now? You feel like you just have to suck it up and get on with life. It comes down to accepting things and moving forward.

Even if you have not had a past that was completely terrifying, you might still feel this way. At this point it seems like there is nothing left. The devastation and the struggle you go through makes you feel worse because you feel guilty for the people around you. Isolation is so much better, at least until you can be happy.

And what even is happiness? Sounds like a joke. It’s all about surviving, enduring, and enjoying the little things right?

I’ve been broken because I had a broken heart. I don’t have a broken heart anymore. If I could, I would sit on my knees in whatever weather decides to come, and repair every single broken heart for all those restless, reckless, empty people out there. I can’t. Only God can mend a broken heart. I am a vessel, something and someone He can use to show His love, but it can’t be me, not me alone.

Yes, I said God. Right now you’re probably looking at me with curiosity or complete disinterest. But I will tell you, yes, I believe. I believe in God with all my heart and it is the one thing that mends my broken heart every single day.

You don’t have to do this. You don’t have to be afraid, fearful, disbelieving, and all those terrible things you’ve felt on your own. There is hope. I have hope. I have hope because I know that God loves me. So look around. What city are you in? Where do you live? How do you live? I’m so sorry. “For greater things have yet to come, and greater things are still to be done in this city,” Chris Tomlin lyrics. He continues, “There is no one like our God.” I am so sorry, but there is hope. That hope is because the Lord God is our God and He loves us.

It looks dark and it doesn’t look too good does it? I can’t fix your problems. I wish I could. I can’t, I can’t even fix my own problems. God can. He can fix anything and everything because He loves us. I am a testimony to His love. He is my God, and I am grateful. I lay down my life every single day and I lift my hands and I give everything away to Him – only to watch Him bless me by taking my hopes, my dreams, and my failures, and using them to glorify His name high.

As I said, I can’t fix things, but I can tell you that God can and He wants to. I can bring you Good News. There is good news for you. Whatever situation you are in, whoever you are, wherever you are, and wherever you’re going – regardless of what happened yesterday and what could happen tomorrow – there is good news for you.

He loves to love you.

I found my broken self on the edge of what I thought was the brink of completely losing it. God didn’t give up on me, He didn’t leave me behind, and He didn’t let me remain that way. He let me know, “Annalisa, I love you.” When He told me, I knew I was ready to start making the journey back. I have never been happier to be saved by God, and I will tell you all about that sometime. He loves me now and forever.

“Wow, that’s nice. I’m glad you believe. Since you said being loved by God and knowing you are loved by God is everything, what exactly does it mean for God to love you?” So glad you asked. I am going to break it down for you the best I can.

Here are some common questions relating to God’s love: why does He love us, how does He love us, and how can I know? Good thing for you, there are answers to those questions that will bring you so much joy which will help you in your perseverance.

But wait, before you read on, before anyone encourages you, before you do anything else, do not judge yourself, condemn yourself, or cut yourself down any further than what you’ve already done.

We love because He first loved us. (1 John 4:19)


It is imperative that you understand how God feels about you. God loves you. He wants to show you that.

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. We write this to make our joy complete. (1 John 1:1-4)


Many of us, maybe all of us, have wondered why God loves us. For God to know you is to love you. God planned this from the foundations of the world - that He would love you, save you, redeem you, keep you, and give you a future and hope. God wants you to live in peace and comfort and joy. He has a storehouse full of blessing for you – that is Heaven – and He delights in giving them to you.

God is love. (1 John 4:8)


I started to tell you how God wants you to have good things…

However, as it is written: "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him. But God has revealed it to us by His Spirit.” (1 Corinthians 2:9-10)


Yes, there are good things prepared for you that are unimaginable. Close your eyes and think of the most amazing thing that could ever happen to you. Think of the nicest thing that could ever happen to you. God can and will do the most amazing, nicest, most beautiful things for you that you can’t even think of. That’s how good they are. But we can know because we have His Spirit. We couldn’t know what good things God has planned for us without His Spirit, and so that begins now.

For God has not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. (2 Timothy 1:7)


Everything God does is an act of love. Everything God does for us, He does because He loves us. While He loves us, it mends anything and everything broken inside of us and it is the greatest thing that has ever happened to us. You can’t know until you feel it. “Everything about You, it takes my breath away, hallelujah. I tried this world without you and it was my grave mistake, hallelujah,” Sanctus Real lyrics. I love everything about God. I am learning not to be afraid anymore because God loves me.

There is no fear in love, for perfect love casts out fear. (1 John 4:18)


God loves you very much, more than you know. He will not leave you, forget you, or ignore you. “You come to me with scars on your wrist. You tell me this will be the last night feeling like this. I just came to say goodbye. I didn't want you to see me cry, I'm fine. But I know it's a lie. This is the last night you'll spend alone. Look me in the eyes so I know you know. I'm everywhere you want me to be. The last night you'll spend alone. I'll wrap you in my arms and I won't let go. I'm everything you need me to be,” Skillet lyrics.

I love those who love me and those who seek me find me. (Proverbs 8:17)


And how do we know that God loves us?

This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. (1 John 4:9-11)

I’VE BEEN RIGHT WHERE YOU ARE… YOU WON’T BELIEVE WHAT HAPPENED TO ME…


I hope by now you understand at least a little bit better, more about God’s love. I don’t understand everything, I don’t know everything. But I believe. It feels like victory because it is victory. Do you know how many years, weeks, days, and hours I fought with myself because I was doubtful and couldn’t believe fully? This faith didn’t seem crazy to me, but it didn’t make sense either. I wanted to believe so much, so bad. I was broken and selfish and depressed and unbelieving. During that time I asked God to help me but how could I be sure He cared and was listening to me?

I knew the answer for that was in the Bible but again, I just couldn’t believe. In my brokenness, I took a piece of glass and dragged it across my skin, hard and deep enough to cause penetration. I bled. I thought somehow that cutting would help ease my pain. I cut myself on my wrist on both sides. I cut myself elsewhere in multiple places. I cried when I did that because I could not understand why I was doing it and it was devastating to me, but I thought I deserved it. I cut myself in other places as well.

During that time I was isolating, reclusive, argumentative, impulsive, and scared. I fought with everyone, convinced that no one liked me. I wanted to beat them to the punch so I hated myself more than they did… That was where I was at. One particular morning when I got up, after my sister had left for school and my dad was at work, I was alone in the house. I cut myself. Later that day I put on my flip flops and proceeded to walk across the yard to the first street that I would cross. This was my route I took almost everyday to the high school to meet my sister. I only made it as far as the first street. I got hit by a car.

I woke up in the hospital with my nurse looking down at me. She was thrilled I was awake. I knew something was very wrong but I couldn’t react. I looked at my nurse who explained that I was hit by a car the previous week. She let me know she was going to get my dad. To make a long story short, that was one of the scariest situations I’ve ever been in. I didn’t know whether I would make it or not, so I prayed and asked God if He would let me make it through and if not, that was okay too. But I would prefer to remain alive at least so I could go home and tell everyone I loved them. I wanted to find my mom and my dad who I had fought with so much for so long and say “I love you,” and then live it. It was all that made me happy and I wanted that desperately. God healed me. I had to learn to walk again and spend a few days at rehab but I made it home.

I had been convinced I was alone in this world but everyone came to see me at the hospital and my Facebook wall was covered with comments. I began to realize I was wrong, very wrong. I’ve had a broken heart, I’ve been in a car accident, I’ve been hit by a car when I was walking, and I’ve cut myself – a lot – and it didn’t kill me. God must really love me. There is now, no doubt in my mind that the Lord God is my God and that I know Him. I love Him with everything me. It is the only thing that gets me through the day and it is my happiness. I have peace with God and so I have peace in my life. I’ve never had peace before. I have never been happier and that is because I know I love God, very much.

My life could have been otherwise. It could have been over. I thought it was so over. It wasn’t. I wanted to go home and love my parents. I was so sorry for everything I had done and how I had acted. There was nothing loving about how I had been. In the long run I had only hurt myself. The problem was not them, but me, and I was so sorry for acting that way. They didn’t deserve that. I wanted to go home and let them see the product of a daughter they had raised who had turned out just fine so they could be happy and know they did well.

“We only got 86,400 seconds in a day too turn it all around or to throw it all away. We gotta tell 'em that we love 'em while we got the chance to say. Gotta live like we're dying,” Kris Allen lyrics. I understand those lyrics now way more than I ever thought I would. In a second anything can change, you could get hit by a car, you could cut yourself and hit a vein, you could get sick, fall in love, fall out of love, lose someone or something. You could have to learn how to walk again and be stuck in the hospital or at a rehab and miss out on seeing the sky for days on end. If you want to be truly happy, realize everything you are thankful for and then you will be. If anything can change for better or for worse – if in a second your life could be otherwise, what do you want to do? I want to love. I dedicate my life to love. I’ve learned a lot about love. I learned in the puddles of brokenness that love is there to pull me up out and out. Love belongs to us. Love is keeping us alive. Love is the reason behind the salvation that lives in me. Love is one thing everyone needs and the one thing we can give away anytime, anywhere. Love is the best thing that has ever happened to me, to any of us. Love says, “The worst is over.”

“Life flies by so you have to embrace it. Forget the past 'cause you cannot erase it. So live the dream, and learn to chase it. And when you can almost taste it, it's all come alive,” My Favorite Highway lyrics. In a second anything can change and it showed me what matters – love – love is alive.