I woke up this morning with a hardened heart.
My ears were plugged and my back hurt, so when my alarm went off, I got up, took some decongestant, and crawled back into bed for another hour – skipping my workout. When I got up the second time around, I ignored my bible and jumped on my computer to check email. I sat with the massager pummeling my back as I surfed the net, and whined in my head about how horrible I felt. How long can I stay in this spot before I have to move?
I waited until the last minute to take my shower. I couldn’t find the purse I usually take to work, so I crammed everything into the first one I did find, and stomped my way out to the car with my ride to the bus stop following shortly behind. I didn’t say a word the entire time there, not even a thank you or a “see ya”. In fact, all I did was sit and stew. Do you have to play this CD again? We’ve listened to this same one for three weeks straight.
Then a kid getting on the bus asked if I had a nickel. I pulled the headphones out of my ear with a long, frustrated sigh, fished my wallet out of my purse, and handed him the one quarter I had left. Someone else found a nickel, though, and when he brought my quarter back, I was glad. Better someone else’s money than mine.
When the bus driver stayed too long at any one stop, I got angry. I’m on a tight schedule here, dude. Hurry up.
When another kid missed the bus because he didn’t start running the second he saw it, I felt vindicated. Thank you for not stopping, driver. He wasn’t at the stop on time, and he didn’t try to get there fast enough when he did see you. He deserved to miss the bus.
When the light was green, and I couldn’t get off the bus on the side of the street I usually get off at, I got frustrated. Why do I have to walk back across the intersection?
When the connecting bus I usually ignore went by while I was walking, I became overwhelmingly tired. If you had stayed at the stop, you wouldn’t have had to walk so far.
All of these thoughts swirling around in my brain… they usually don’t get anywhere near so much airtime. Normally, I catch them before they get so far out of line, but this morning I liked them. They said exactly what my aching back and fluid-filled ears wanted to hear. They made like desert air and sucked all the moisture that made my heart soft and malleable, leaving me in a state I haven’t seen in years. Hard heart, numb mind.
But even in the hardness, there was a voice that would not leave me alone. I couldn’t drown it out with loud music. I couldn’t ignore it over the voices of my co-workers as they worked at their typical frenetic pace answering phones and serving customers. Finally, I had to walk away from my desk and retreat to the nearest bathroom.
As I braced myself on the counter and stared at the mirror, the voice repeated what it had been trying to say all morning.
I didn’t make you for this. Don’t you remember that?
Like lightning, I was struck right there. All I could do was hang my head in shame because I knew better. I know my Maker, my Creator. I know all of the thoughts running around my head block communication between us. I know they make it hard for me to be in tune with Him. The second I put my faith and trust in God, I gave myself over to the thought that He could raise me above all of this, that He would daily chip away at the hardness so my heart stays soft enough to be shaped for what He has in the works for me.
Don’t you remember that faith isn’t based on feelings?
Another slap of conviction. Yeah, I know it isn’t. If faith were based on feelings, then I would be a yo-yo, a lukewarm Christian at best. Thank goodness it’s not. Thank goodness this faith is something I know is truth with every single cell in my body, and that I don’t have to rely on how I feel on any given day – even on the days when my back is sore and my ears don’t want to drain.
And thank goodness I don’t have to go to sleep with the same hardened heart I woke up with this morning.
