The picture for today shows a heart shaped rock laying in my hand. For a very long time, I had my heart – my broken heart – closed up in my clenched fist.
Today – let’s look at the process of opening our hands and hearts and releasing our brokenness to God and what that looks and feels like.
It’s become easier for me to say no thanks to trusting people – with an open heart. I’m good with God.
In all my conversations through this month of focusing on grief – the best words of wisdom –
“But if we love – we will grieve”.
Maybe you haven’t suffered the loss of someone close to you through death. Yet, it’s likely you have experienced loss of job, loss of health or loss of friendships. Divorce. Moving. Kids leaving home. Loss of dreams.
Change.
All – a big deal.
The one grief I haven’t talked about is the grief of losing a pet.
Reason tells me it doesn’t compare to losing a human but experience tells me it is really hard. Our hearts open to their unconditional love. They depend on us. They are sad when we are. They get excited when we do. Year after year after year they climb next to us and snuggle up.
They listen when I talk.
One of mine is laying beside me right now, snoring away.
I’m so grateful for my pets. The gift of touch they give me. The eyes that feel like they understand everything I say.
My heart feels safe with them.
I’m not sure why, but I never thought about what it would be like to live alone. Are you kidding? In the midst of having four kids in five years, moving all over the country and “planning” our future, it never took up any space in my mind.
But, here I am.
Yet, going a level deeper, I have learned an even better place to put my trust – my hope – than my humans or my pets – my two legged and my four legged that own my heart here in this life.
No matter what. No matter where. No matter when. God is there. When I call out or turn to say something to a person, forgetting no one is there – God is.
No matter. . .
Grieving moves me to gratitude – grieving has exposed God to me in ways I never would have known.
It almost impossible to see Him like this from other angles until you have knelt there in that place of loss.
At least that’s how it has and continues to work in my heart my friends.
It’s a long, hard process.
Just this morning I woke up and realized I had curled up on my side, bent arms crossed, clenched fists tucked up under my neck. Closed off to the world, closed off to the thought of anything but protecting my heart.
And I don’t know why it still happens.
But I have learned what to do. I roll onto my back, stretch my arms out to my side, breathe deeply and relax and begin a conversation with God. Inviting Him in – before my feet hit the floor.
One final thought, grieving works best when we allow it to produce a goodness in us. I’m grateful for the journey. There were a few times when I came very close to quitting. I almost became a permanent prisoner. It would have been easier to give in to the lies, letting anger take up permanent residence and become the person God didn’t plan for me to be.
It feels like an eternity when we are all in the middle of it but there is a greater eternity waiting for us.
I can truthfully say, learning to trust God, to open my heart to him in ways I never knew possible, has been and continues to be an adventure I never anticipated.
So I want to leave you with this deeply encouraging passage of scripture – the apostle Paul’s prayer –
14-19 My response is to get down on my knees before the Father, this magnificent Father who parcels out all heaven and earth. I ask him to strengthen you by his Spirit—not a brute strength but a glorious inner strength—that Christ will live in you as you open the door and invite him in. And I ask him that with both feet planted firmly on love, you’ll be able to take in with all followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Christ’s love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God.
20–21 God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us.
Ephesians 3:14–20 The Message
“Thank You Father for giving us Your word to live by. For the examples we find when we open it and seek You, dispel the darkness and bring in the Light. We are seekers of Light, Lord. We ask for You to reveal the hidden places in us that flee the Light. We want to be pure, Lord. We want to move closer to You as we open ourselves to allow You to come in. We praise You, the one and only living God. Amen.”