The thing you are carrying, I can see it in your face before you speak a word. You love him, and yet you watch him flinch at happiness as though he has no right to it. You see the shadow pass over his eyes when something good begins to stir in his heart, as if an old voice whispers that he must not be glad again, that to receive new affection is to betray what went before. That is a heavy place to stand, and your own heart is feeling the bruise of it.
Let me tell you something very plainly: our Lord Jesus Christ does not merely blot out the record of sin, He also heals the wound it leaves behind. I have known men who, after a great fall, crept about like men in a prison of their own making, long after the gate had been flung open. David, after his foul sin, became so tangled in his own devices that he could not recognise his own portrait when Nathan held it up. Guile sprang up in him like weeds in a neglected garden, and he grew strange to his own soul. Yet the moment he made a clean breast of it and turned to the Lord, the same man heard the word, "The Lord has put away your sin." And after that, he did not go through the world with a black cap on his head and a sack about his loins. He arose, and he sang again. He loved again. He poured out his heart in praise, and the sweet singer of Israel was sweet once more. The guilt was gone, and the guile with it. That same forgiving hand, dear heart, is just as ready now.
Do you not think the Lord knows how to remove the thorns from a man's memory without removing the tender honour he feels for what was good? When Christ heals a wound, He does not leave a festering core of shame behind. His pardon makes the heart clean. "I shall be clean," David cried, "I shall be whiter than snow." Not merely patched up, not merely excused, but made as though he had never been stained at all. And if that is true for the man, it is just as true for the sorrow he carries for another. The tenderness he felt, the faithfulness he gave, those things are not discarded. They are taken up into the mercy of God, and He gives permission to the soul to love again without treason to the past. Your friend needs to hear the whisper of the Spirit saying, "It is not wrong to be whole. It is not disloyal to smile again. I, the Lord, give you leave to be happy."
You tell me he has built walls. Yes, I know that masonry. A man who has been wounded will often throw up a barricade and call it prudence, when it is really fear. Peter, after he had denied his Master, might have spent the rest of his days muttering, "I am too unreliable to be trusted with anything holy." But what did Christ do? A look from the Lord broke him down, and then a word from the Lord restored him: "Feed my sheep." Not a reproach, but a commission. The risen Christ did not say, "Peter, you will always be the man who fell." He said, "Go, shepherd My lambs. I have work for you to do, and love for you to give." And Peter became a man whose boldness at Pentecost was ten times what it had been before. That same look can fall upon your friend's heart right now. And when the Lord looks, walls melt.
I want you to put this little picture in your mind: a ship that has been battered in a storm and driven into a harbour, its timbers creaking, its crew weary. The captain sees the open sea and trembles. But then the pilot comes aboard, and he does not say, "You must never sail again." He says, "I will take you out. I know the deep waters. Follow my hand." That is what the Lord Jesus does for a life that has known loss. He does not call us to stay moored forever in the shallows of safety. He bids us launch out into the deep, with His presence as our chart and His love as our wind.
The guilt that hangs about your friend's heart is a black-edged envelope, and he thinks it contains a sentence. But open it, and you will find a love letter from the pierced hand of the Redeemer, written in His own blood, and it reads, "I have cast your sins behind My back; go in peace." Our dear Master never grudges giving joy to His people. He is no miser of happiness. When He heals, He heals thoroughly. And you may be certain that it is the Evil One who hisses, "You may not," while the Good Shepherd calls, "Come, and I will give you rest, not unrest, not perpetual penance, but rest."
Do not try to pull down his walls with your own hands; love cannot force, but it can pray. And what you are doing now, bringing his soul before the throne of grace, is the mightiest work in the world. The Lord who restores the years that the locust has eaten, who makes the dry branch bud and blossom, can put a new song in his mouth. And the day will come when you two shall walk in a path so flooded with mercy that the past will not be a chain about his ankle, but a monument of grace behind you both.
Father, whose compassions fail not, come down into this secret place where my ### has laid her burden. Speak to the heart of this man she loves. Say to him, "I have redeemed you; you are mine. Arise, and walk into the new season I have appointed." Let the blood of Jesus whisper peace in the deep of his soul. Break the hidden fetters, scatter the mist of false guilt, and let him feel the absolute acceptance that Christ has purchased. Make him to know that loving again does not honour the past less, but glorifies the God who heals. And to this dear one at my side, grant the patience of faith, the quietness of a soul that trusts in the Lord, and a hope that does not wither. Lead them together, gentle Shepherd, by the hand, and let Your presence go with them. For the sake of Jesus, who loved us and gave Himself for us. Amen.
Prayer Focus: God, Thank You for loving me. Thank You for loving me, Jesus. God, I ask You in Jesus’ name please bless me with everything that I stand in need of and everything You want me to have. 
