Heart-Throbs

Four chambers: right and left atria and right and left ventricles. It has been medically proven that arteries and veins pumping blood through the heart are keeping us alive. It is the main organ we cannot live without, except the brain, of course. (The human brain is yet a mystery within itself.) How can it be that this beating, bleeding tissue within my chest can with-hold so much love and pain simultaneously? Sometimes I think I feel so much that my heart will beat right through the walls of my chest. My Mamma used to tell me, “Leigh-Ann, you have always worn your heart on your sleeve. It’s too easy for people to break.” No matter how deeply I have been wounded by someone I seem to always find ways to love them again, eventually.

“The value of feeling depends upon its cause.” Charles Spurgeon

Christian martyrs or those known for fighting and/or dying for their faith such as Polycarp, William Tyndale, John Huss, King Charles I, Joan of Arc, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and one of my favorites, Corrie Ten Boom. These people had strengths I’m certain I don’t have. My heart wouldn’t survive the fires and prisons and tortures of their lives and their deaths.

My heart gets broken on a daily basis sometimes. My children, they are capable of much breaking; whether it be hearts or vases. Needless to say we have lots of glue in our house! God’s glue that is! Dad, being “Mr. Fixit”, always has the answer in his hand-his “super-phone”! Meaning, he has God’s Word on his phone. What troubles me most are the times when we are reading God’s word, and though the answers are right there before our eyes, sometimes our children can’t see it! Truly, sometimes I can’t see it. (Or at least know how I should apply it.) Isn’t that how it is with lessons learned? It is seemingly clearest to those furthest from the problems. I can see yours and you can see mine. Trouble is seeing your own. AKA: Log in the Eye Syndrome. Hence my heart-throbs on…Beats per minute, about 140-160. Breaks per week-superfluous. God’s own heart was broken on Calvary. Surely, He suffered greatly at seeing Jesus relinquish his life on the cross. Knowing it was the will of the Father still didn’t squelch the spirit when he cried out, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" (Matthew 27:46, Psalm 22:1)


“Love and self-denial for the object loved go hand-in-hand. If I profess to love a certain person, and yet will neither give my silver nor my gold to relieve his wants, nor in any way deny myself comfort or ease for his sake, such love is contemptible; it wears the name, but lacks the reality of love: true love must be measured by the degree to which the person loving will be willing to subject himself to crosses and losses, to suffering and self-denials. After all, the value of a thing in the market is what a man will give for it, and you must estimate the value of a man’s love by that which he is willing to give up for it.” Charles Spurgeon

Life can be so bittersweet at times. Hearts ache and hearts break, that’s life. God knows our hearts and that’s important as we are learning to love Him more fully and love one another the way He expects us to. Watching your baby, who you would swear was just a newborn, wake up on her 15th birthday and she’s taller than you, or the knowing that you have labored through the potty training years for the very last time. These are the “bittersweets” for sure. From weaned babe to tumultuous teen seeking our permission to lay hands on the wheel of a 4-wheeled weapon of mass destruction, otherwise known as our Suburban, has definitely put a new spin on life for this mother of seven! And I press on. For I know that, “He who has begun a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”         Philippians 1:6

Blessings.