Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Dearest God,

A frequent prayer I pray is "Keep the edges of my heart soft." I pray that when I think bitterness wants to find its way back to my heart. A hard heart can surely open the door wide to every kind of evil.

A recurring challenge causes me to pray for soft edges. It keeps me on my toes, helping me to realize that I must ever be on watch or bitterness can steal my heart, not just make it hard. I cannot love you or anyone else with a hard heart. Only when my heart is pliable and soft can I really love.

I remember the images of a surgeon holding a human heart, repairing it, making it work again. And I think how you must surely hold my heart, repairing the rips and tears, carressing the edges, making them soft, then carefully putting it back in place, readying it to beat again, taking up its rhythm at your mark. If only I would operate this way. If only I would step toward you and ask for a change in my heart, an emergency surgery, an intentional transformation, how much better I could function in this life of faith I carry with me.

A soft heart makes my faith doable because I believe it does. When I carry my heart to you, tattered and worn and you remake it, I am enabled to go about my faith business again. I don't lose time hardening my heart, making decisions that will hurt you and others. My heart will find its rhythm in yours and I will be able to follow you into every hurtful place, knowing I am safely with you. The arrows may fly but even when it pierces my heart, you are there to mend it. And I am free to love...yet again.

In sorrow and grief
I lean in
to you.
My words
have betrayed me,
my heart
hardening.
An erratic pulse
tells me
I have fallen away.
Take my heart,
Lord,
make it yours.
Make it soft,
keep it soft.
I don't ever
want to lose
my ability
to love.
And to love
is to hurt
sometimes.
Great Repairer,
you are
so worthy
of my praise,
my utter devotion.
Keep me
on the edge
of love
at all times.
I pray
with love
in my heart
for you.

Always, Andrea