I Heart ____

The heart is one of the most fascinating organs in the body.  I’ve had friends who have heart issues and I’m always amazed when I hear everything their doctor’s are exploring and testing.  The heartbeat is one of the key sounds us humans tune into.  I couldn’t wait to hear our daughter’s heartbeat at each doctor appointment, I can feel my own when I run or exert myself and when I’m cuddled up with my husband, his steady beat usually lulls me into relaxation. 

When we talk about the heart, it usually has some connection to the things we love, the things we dislike, our passions, our desires.  If I write a note to my daughter, I sign it with a drawing of a heart and my name.  It is a gauge for our health, vitality and emotions. 

Yet, it’s one of the most protected organs in the body.  The ribs wrap a strong web around the heart (and other vital organs) to encase it in a shell made of bone.  Those bones are hard to break.  If you or someone you know has had open heart surgery, you perhaps understand how significant it is to even get to the heart, let alone work on it.

In my own life, I’m starting to see some parallel to how the heart is positioned in the body to what the Bible says about the heart. 

Jeremiah 17:9 – The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked; who can know it?”

Hebrews 4:12 - For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

Proverbs 34:18 - Every way of a man is right in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the heart.

Why does it talk about the heart being what God is weighing or discerning?  Many people, after a few moments of conversation will tell you where their heart is.  In a few short moments you’ll know that my heart loves my family.  Yet, it is set apart as being weighed and discerned. 

I realize that the heart houses our intentions.  What we are shown as our “heart’s desire” isn’t really what’s enclosed.  It’s simply the beat we can feel in our wrist or neck.  It’s not what is deep inside, protected and hard to get to.  I’ve recently been down a hard road to learn that what I see as someone’s heart isn’t really what is in their heart.  I’ve discovered that in their heart is hatred, bitterness, jealousy, resentfulness, anger, revenge.  I’ve been distracted by the outside rather than looking to the inside.

When God searches my heart, my absolute desire is that He sees Himself.  Despite all the outside, when He breaks through the bone, He sees my heart’s desire is to serve and follow Him. 

When we break through the bone, what is in your heart? 

Why do I make things so complicated?

How often do we make something more complicated than it is?  In the financial world where I work, it is often the case that we make things harder than they are.  Maybe it is because we want to appear smarter or to have some advantage.   I think the real issue is that we think it has to be complicated in order for it to be realistic or for it to work. 

I hear the statement “that seems too easy” or “I thought this would be harder” quite often.  What no one in the financial world will tell you is that the general concepts of finance are actually very easy.  We’ve just complicated it with 1,000,000 different ways to build on that foundation.  We’ve actually lost sight of that foundation.

The one room house serves the same purpose as the 12 room house.  One is just bigger and has more area to clean.  Although I do like the idea of a bathroom!

With a work project this week, I’ve started to realize how complicated I can make things.  I fill this life with struggles, injustices, scenarios, expectations…

The reality is I’ve got 2 things to do:

1) Love God with all my heart, strength, soul and mind (Luke 10:27 and Matthew 22:37)

2) Show His love to others to they can know Him (Matthew 28:16-20)

Why do I complicate this?  To love God with all my being takes humility.  If I’m to love Him with all my thoughts, those thoughts cannot be clouded with all my struggles, injustices, scenarios, expectations.  They’ve got to be filled with Him alone.  Same goes for my heart, strength and soul.  If I’m full of all my stuff, how is anyone else going to see Him? 

It’s made complicated because life, this earth, are full of complications.  It’s full of sin.  It’s full of struggle.  It’s full of injustice.  It’s full of scenarios.  It’s full of expectations.  Those are all human.  

Yet, time after time, Christ meets me in my complication.  He shows up despite my expectation or my scenario.  He shows up despite me.  He continually, in the midst of my stuff, shows me unfailing, perfect love.

As I work on this financial project, that is getting more complicated and less applicable, I’m reminded to evaluate myself.  It’s been a great reminder to go back down to the basics and strip away all my complications. 

The impact of a legacy

2015 has been a difficult year at work.  We have had more people (clients, co-workers and family members) pass away in the first month of this year than we did all last year.  It has started me thinking about legacy.  The parent I am today is building a legacy for our daughters and their daughters and sons and their daughters and sons.  A legacy build on Jesus, we are promised, will continue.

“Know therefore that the LORD your God is God; He is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love Him and keep His commandment.”  Deuteronomy 7:9

I always knew both my grandma and my grandpa had been married before.  We had your typical, weird blended family.  My mom is an aunt to a niece who is older than her.  My grandma and my aunt (her daughter) were pregnant at the same time in 1954.  I didn’t know how odd that was until I got older.  My grandma never talked about her first marriage and so it was never something that was questioned.

My grandma was born in 1913.  It was a time of one room schools and before the 19^th amendment when women gained the right to vote (which was 1920).  I cannot imagine what that time was like and it wasn’t something we ever discussed.  She always said she forgot. 

When I was little we had to make a family tree for school.  There is some deep desire I have to find out my ancestry.  I can remember my grandfather teaching me German and telling me stories of his childhood, speaking only German until he started school.  Every time I tried to go back in my grandma’s family, she would tell me that her father was adopted and so they know nothing about his ancestors.

I never questioned either of them.

Until recently.

Maybe my age has given me perspective.  I now realize that my grandma was an alcoholic.  I’m positive we didn’t talk about the past for a number of reasons, but mainly because it included people we did not speak to.  My grandma cut everyone out of her life.  She had a sister.  She was a child of divorce and had a step-mother.  She had step-siblings.  She has nieces and nephews.  Yet, I don’t even know these people’s names.  For years I didn’t even know they even existed. 

As I looked into the past, I start to see all the layers of my grandma. 

Born in 1913.

Married in 1929, at age 15.  Her husband was 22.  My great-grandparents signed the marriage certificate.  We have a 15 year old.  I cannot imagine her marrying a 22 year old and signing the marriage certificate.

Then it made sense.  My grandma was 3 months pregnant at her wedding in 1929.  In July, at age 16, she gives birth to my aunt Betty.  Five days later, Betty died.  Every holiday we would take my grandma (who never learned to drive) to the cemetery.  She would spend very little time at Betty’s grave, almost like she couldn’t stand it.  Yet it was always important to go there, clean off the space and leave flowers.  Now I see this loss very differently.  In 1929, when you absolutely didn’t get pregnant outside of marriage, my grandmother was 15 and pregnant by her 22 year old beau.  Her parents signed off her marriage certificate and at 16 she is married, gives birth and loses a child.  At 16!  What kind of child was my grandma?  How on earth did she meet and hangout with, intimately, a 22 year old boy?  In 1929?  What kind of parents did she have?

Three years later, she gave birth to my aunt Donna, who was raised by my great-grandma. 

At some point my grandma got divorced and met my grandpa at a bar.  They got married, had two kids and I met her when she was 65.  My grandparents were awesome grandparents.  In retrospect, I can see that their marriage wasn’t a marriage, it’s was an arrangement.  I thought all grandparents had separate bedrooms.  I thought all grandparents didn’t really speak to each other.  See, this is my weird family.

If you connect the dots, my grandma was working and at the bar looking for a man, leaving her daughter to be raised by her mother.  I wonder if my grandma spent her life grieving loss – the life she envisioned, her children, her relationships – and that led her to drink.  Did she cut people out of her life because they reminded her of her past?  Or was this some legacy that she was carrying on?

I decided recently to use the power of the internet to see if I could find old adoption records on my great-grandfather.  Who was he and how did his relationship with my grandma impact him?  She cut him out when he remarried.  Was my grandma just throwing a tantrum or was there something else?  My great-grandpa has a very unique name and I was positive a search would lead somewhere.  I found his marriage certificate to my great-grandma, so I had a birthplace and parent’s names, but unsure if those were his adopted parents or his real parents. 

In a matter of seconds, I learned that my grandma wasn’t entirely truthful.  Maybe it was due to the legacy my great-grandpa left or was it another lie she made up, I’m not positive.  He wasn’t adopted, like my grandma made me believe.  He was raised by his father and a step-mother, because his mother died when he was 6.  In a way he was adopted, but only by his step-mom.  He still had his biological dad.  He was an only child and didn’t even attend his father’s funeral.  I doubt his father knew where he lived because the obituary was completely incorrect. 

Why did my great-grandfather stop talking to his dad?  Was the adoption story his or my grandma’s? 

My family is full of secrets that I am now only discovering.  I’ve been reading obituaries and hearing stories of lives well lived and legacies.  Yet, when I look to my own family history, the legacy I have been given is one of grudges and lies. 

I am so grateful for my mom who changed our legacy, by meeting Jesus and raising me on the foundation of Him.  I praise God that both N and I have that same foundation and are promised an inheritance and legacy for generations.  I am reminded that not everyone is as they seem, even those we think we know so well.  We are all shaped by our past. 

As I uncover more of my family’s legacy, I’m convicted to continue to rewrite that legacy.  No more secrets, no more lies, but a foundation built on the cornerstone of Jesus, the only legacy with a promise.

The Eternal View

Right now we are in the midst of great difficulty.  I know, if you’ve been reading, you’re saying “again?  Really?”  The answer is absolutely!  The closer I draw near to God the more I realize the why. 

This is life. 

This last week He led me to these verses:  2 Corinthians 4:7-18

⁷ But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. ⁸ We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; ⁹ persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. ¹⁰ We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. ¹¹ For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. ¹² So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.

¹³ It is written: “I believed; therefore I have spoken.”^[b] Since we have that same spirit of^[c] faith, we also believe and therefore speak, ¹⁴ because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you to himself. ¹⁵ All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God.

¹⁶ Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. ¹⁷ For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. ¹⁸ So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

I was immediately encouraged.  When I looked into this deeper, I realized why.

We are hard pressed, like grapes being pressed for wine, but not crushed.

We are perplexed, like without a thought of what to do or where we are, but not in despair.

We are persecuted, like being stalked to be consumed, but not abandoned.

We are struck down, with heavy, overwhelming burdens, but not destroyed.

I try to imagine being pressed like a grape for wine, without a thought of where to go, as I’m being stalked for consumption and overwhelmed with burden.  My human self knows those emotions.  They call me to act, toward revenge, toward anger, toward justification of my actions. 

Yet, God says that I will not be crushed, in despair, abandoned or destroyed.  I read that to mean those emotions, while human, are not His.

My life is full of each of these things, yet I have more peace and comfort than I can explain.  What God is showing me is that my human view is limited.  I need to see His eternal view.  Each step I take needs to be in obedience to Him.  If it’s not, I can detour His plan.  His eternal plan shows His love to everyone.  His eternal plan is for salvation.  His eternal plan brings everything to Him.  His eternal plan brings Him glory. 

As I am pressed, perplexed, persecuted and struck down, He will use all of it for His glory.  I just have to rest in the knowledge that He is the author and perfector of my faith.