If you’ve ever gone through a heartbreak, you know the pain of betrayal, rejection, loneliness, and loss. Those emotions represent something that was done to you, or taken from you—actions against your heart. But there’s another source of pain that comes from within your heart: the pain of overflow.

Your physical heart was designed to pump blood in two directions: blood comes in and blood goes out. If there is damage or a blockage, the heart ceases to function properly, and if it is not repaired, death will be the ultimate result.

Likewise, your emotional heart also has a two-way flow. It is designed to receive love and give love. When your love flow is blocked or hindered in any way—in any direction—your emotional heart becomes damaged. Over time, this can lead to hardening, neglect, decay, and emotional darkness.

With heartbreak of any kind, the flow of love into your heart may seem to have been completely blocked or squeezed into just a trickle. You’ve lost someone, or your relationship was devastated by what the other person did to you. Your emotional heart is starving for love that has been lost. Perhaps you’ve also contributed to this lack of inward flow by hardening your damaged heart or putting up walls around it as protection. Either way, you were created with the need to receive love, and now it seems like the flow into your heart is gone.

I have good news if this describes where you are in your Love journey. My precious friend, love is still all around you, trying to flow in. What happened to you—what that person, or people, did to you—has not cut off all love from coming in to your bruised and fragile heart. If you can just step back from the pain, even just a little, you’d see that there are people all around you who are sending love your way. Someone might even be aiming a love firehose in your direction. But you have to make sure you haven’t closed your in-valve. Is your pain, your hesitancy, or your past preventing you from receiving love? Make sure you’re not blaming something or someone else for the walls you’ve built. Let God break through those barriers and get the love flowing in again. He is the very definition of Love.

The Pain of Overflow

Re-opening your love in-flow is extremely important for fighting through your past pain and making sure your emotional heart stays healthy. But you also have to deal with the pain of overflow. What do I mean by this? Simply that your emotional heart’s out-valve must also be clear of blockages.

Sometimes, our love-pain comes from not being able to pour love into someone else. We desperately want to love someone—want someone special in our lives to love—and our hearts are about to overflow. With nowhere to direct that flow, we feel like our love is scattered, directionless, or even misplaced. Some of it splashes onto those around us, but it might feel to you like the out-flow has been blocked. That special someone who used to be the main receiver of your love is no longer there, maybe hasn’t been for quite a while, and you feel like you’re going to burst unless your flow gets reconnected. That’s the pain of overflow. You see, our emotional hearts are made to overflow with love.

I believe God created every human being with an unlimited capacity to love. We can love even when we’re hurting. We can love someone who is unlovable. We can love when we really don’t feel like it. We can love before someone even loves us back, or regardless if they love us back.

This unlimited capacity is the result of having the image of God inside us, and it is the reason why we can love multiple children equally, love even after a betrayal, love someone beyond the grave, love people who are not like us, and love someone new after the death of a spouse. Our hearts are meant to be fountains of love. It never stops. We are designed to be receivers of love, but also sharers of what we receive. If we don’t give it away, we’ll suffer the pain of overflow. Make sure your love out-valve is clear. Don’t hold back the deep love that only you can give someone else.

Remember, love must have a two-way flow. You can’t block it out while your heart is craving it, and you can’t hold it back when your heart is busting with it. Take a risk, open your heart, and let the love flow again…both ways.

Are you encouraged? I am. I often write these things for the both of us. And you can be assured that it comes from my heart to yours.

Until my next post: Keep being beautiful. You are precious. You are worthy. You are awesome!