Hold Space for the Heartbreak

By Megan Alsop

Our family has fallen into a lovely routine of church on Sunday mornings. I realize this is not a groundbreaking routine, but getting five individuals dressed and out the door always feels like a nice accomplishment. Our youngest and oldest daughters scurry off to Sunday school while my seven-year-old daughter joins my husband and I in the sanctuary, choosing to forgo the chaos and happy screams of her elementary classroom and nestle between us instead. She loves the music, as do I, and this week as we stood to sing, light streaming in the stain glass windows, her climbing on the pew, sliding her small hand in mind and resting her sweet head on my shoulder, it all felt different.

I started to sing the chorus, “O for a thousand tongues to sing my great Redeemer’s praise” and the tears began to fall. I felt my body sway back and forth with the music, my precious daughter by my side, and I wept. For the Palestinian momma who is grieving her baby. For the Israeli momma who is grieving her baby. I cannot imagine trying to say that one heartbreak is worth more because I know, I KNOW, that if my baby were gone from this earth and never able to sway by my side or place her little hand in mine, if I could never put my face in her hair and just breathe her in, I would flood this earth with my tears.

I have spent so many hours reading and watching and trying to take in what is happening across the world from me – trying to understand what is happening in Israel and Palestine. What has been happening in Israel and Palestine for so very many years. And it feels impossible. I recognize there is so much nuance and history and statistics. So very, very much. I also do not have personal ties to either group and I can imagine how being Jewish or Palestinian complicates this even more. What happened on October 7 th and the hostage situation in Israel is horrific. What is happening with the bombing in Palestine is horrific.

Somewhere along the way, though, it feels as if we have stopped asking ourselves the proper question. Instead of throwing back and forth the idea of which is worse, perhaps we could ask ourselves how we can best hold space for all this heartbreak. For all this horror.

I am currently in a master’s program for social work and one of my favorite professors recently shared with our class a story about a client she had. She was recounting a time where she asked the client if he would tell her what about her sessions had been most impactful. She was hopeful that it was going to be one of her stellar “evidenced-based” interventions she had used, but instead he said, “You held space for me.” She had created an environment where he could come and share and she listened. We want to feel that our story is valued. That we are valued. Isn’t that it? At the end of the day, suffering counts. Full stop.

I so vividly remember lying on the floor of my apartment when I was in the depths of my first deep depression. I felt such shame because I didn’t believe I had a right to feel the way that I did. There was so much good in my life and so much hurt in the world. What about the child dying of cancer? What about those homeless and starving? What about the people being bombed in Palestine? What about the Jews experiencing religious persecution? What about what about what about??? I tried to make myself think about everyone else that was experiencing actual pain. And yet that only made me disappear into the dark cave further and further until I could hardly see a way out. We can lift the burden of having to judge heartbreak, friends.

We can hold space. We can see the death and the pain and the horror and we can say, I see you. You matter, your pain matters. It is all heartbreak, friends, because we are all human.

Meet the Author

Megan is a stay-at-home momma to three beautiful girls, ages 10, 7, and 4.  She is a small-town Nebraska girl who moved to Texas for college and never left.  She is currently pursuing a Master's in Social Work degree from the University of Texas at Arlington and is beyond thrilled to have finally found her calling in life.  She would rather be in the mountains than anywhere else, she believes Christmas really IS the most wonderful time of the year, and her husband and friends know that the way to her heart is a skinny latte, extra extra hot