How is Your Heart?

Almost four years ago, I wrote this in my journal.

"Something has happened to me during these last two years. I'm skeptical. I'm judgmental. I'm impatient with others' inadequacies. I don't enjoy religious talks or devotionals like I used to--they aren't feeding me now. I still regularly long for a good nourishing dissertation to be my soundtrack as I work in the kitchen, fold laundry, or go running...but too often I find in them only empty, repeatable words."

The ordinary excerpts in that same notebook are littered with phrases like 

"Tiny triggers have me seething." 

"Who knew kindness would come so unnaturally to me as a mom?" 

"I find no fulfilling friendships--no one who can truly teach or inspire me.... I feel (with some pride, some remorse) that my life has discarded a good portion of innocence and naivety; must I lose appreciation too?"

"Opposition still darkens my heart."

"Am I running around without purpose, sapping my energy? I want to do so many things that sound neat and productive and rewarding, but I've never felt that I'm failing so often as I do now."

What a lot of darkness! I was shrouded in it, and didn't know. I just submitted to the idea that life comes with darkness, and I then settled down to dwell in it. For a time, outwardly, my actions appeared naturally upbeat; but inside, my heart was deeply ill at ease. It was a terrible duo: oppressive and unsustainable. Besides moving to a different house since that time, nothing has changed in my outside influences. They are all still there, and yet my heart and mind today are full of light, hopefulness, appreciation (and so are my journal entries). Today my actions are again an expression of my inner existence, not something I'm trying systematically to change in effort to feel light in my life. 

What changed? 

How did I get so muddled in the first place? 

Perhaps most significantly, was there--is there--a way to maintain a continual inner existence of peace?

Despite everything? 

Life is hard! But it can be soft in our own, inner, private worlds. And how that inner softness cushions every hard thing! Thank goodness for mentors who showed this truth to me. 

Is your heart a place where you can go (and do go, regularly?) for peace, gentle affirmation, beauty, and the holiness you deserve? What could you clean up in it today to make it more so? 

Heal that heart. It's your secret weapon, your partner for life. And, may I add, there is a Master Healer who knows it inside out. Turn to Him if you could use direction. 

I've shared it before, but perhaps this new bit of history will unveil more meaning to these words today:

Recentered
Stephanie Pruitt

When life's bitter feelings choose, in you, to abide,

When its seems you are looking on the world with dark eyes,

When mean words would make of your tongue their own bed,

And the selfishest tempters keep showing their heads,

Courage, my love, and recenter your heart!

The sweetest of medicines to you Christ imparts.

Gentle jubilations exist all around you;

Beauty imparts so the world won't confound you.

Stop and take notice! Let troubling cares fall. 

Release your tight grip, heed not hecklers’ call. 

This is not ignorance, nor turning blind eyes. 

This is trust that goodness exists and is wise. 

Breathe deeply; share smiles; hear the birds sing.

Surely these gifts He gave for this very thing:

For all through the ages, there never was found

One frowning or falling who is stayed on His ground.

This post is shared as part of my life's endeavors I wish to document.