Imagine you open up a closet that you know you shouldn´t and look up to see the entire area filled with boxes and balls and coats and all the other things that we stuff into those ridiculously small portals of forever. With a sudden low rumble that sounds like it starts near the back, the entire monstrosity dives at your head and you find yourself buried beneath a lifetime of memories- birthdays, Christmas´, things that should have been thrown away a lifetime ago, yet you couldn´t part with. Now picture the scene from a bystander as the pile begins to move and shake a little as you begin to work your way out. That is my heart now.
It is hard, it is calloused and it is covered in years of memories that won´t let it move, breath. The past few posts I have been searching for something and I couldn´t figure out what. This place is amazing and yet with a sigh of anticipation I waited for it to unravel and come tumbling down on my already burdened heart. But instead God showed me what I needed for this moment, what I had been searching for and what was under that giant mass that was struggling to get free- a brand new heart. Well, maybe not a brand new one, but rather my old one transformed. It still has the nicks, the fadedness, the character of a heart well worn and well used. Like a favorite teddy bear with gummy bears melted into the fur and seams coming loose, this is still my heart and I thank God that He knows that and loves it still. I like the fact that God uses those things that we desired and yet God knew would not be good for us. Not that He enjoys when we get hurt, but I feel that He understands and wants us to understand Him and why He asks of us what He does. Similar to the Footprints poem, I feel that at times our hearts give out- from heartache, from lover´s rejection, from bad choices, from selfish ambition- and in those moments, God takes our meager hearts in His encompassing hands and gently squeezes. Bump buuuump. The blood rushes out and in for a moment.
Don´t God. It hurts. Let me be. Let me go.
Bump bump. Bump bump.
¨Let me be, but don´t leave me,¨we cry. But He knows what we want and what we need. And yesterday, talking with my wonderful girls, He decided to move some of the crap from the top of the pile.
With several tears, I was able to see my heart in its calloused state and how He really wanted it. I don´t feel like I am completely free, but I feel like it has begun. I have been able to see these kids in the fullness of the glory
that God crowns their beautiful heads and been moved to experience that instead of pulling away or ignoring it. Praise God! Beauty for the Broken. That has been my theme and that has been my circumstance. I want to live life to the full for the glory of God and enjoy all that He has given to be enjoyed. You have given me a breath of fresh air Lord, and like a drowning man, I need more.
Unload the closet and the hindrances and set me free from myself. The evil one has said that my heart is evil, but You have said that it is good. So show me how good.
Bump bump. Thanks God.
Thanks for the sunset.
That helps.
