Sunday, September 6, 2009

My dearest God,

Conversion. Turning toward God. Leaning. Learning. Transformation.

My family reunion elicited conversations regarding the change of hearts. My cousin has no arteries in his heart and lived through a 10% chance to live surgery. His heart grew these other things to help his heart. While still suffering with very precarious health he spoke about the conversion of his own heart. Having just completed classes in the Catholic Church, he will soon marry in the church. When he waved goodbye to travel back to Kentucky with his wife who married him in Las Vegas but wants to seal the marriage in faith, I wondered if it would be the last time I ever saw him.

Another cousin shared her work with troubled teenage girls. Addicted to drugs and all sorts of other things, she just loves them with Jesus. She spoke about their hunger for something good. Many victims of incest, she meets with them weekly leading them in chapel and bible study and taking them out for lunch. Hearts desperate for change.

Sick hearts. Broken hearts. Wounded hearts. Failing hearts. I looked around my family and thought of the experience of many of our hearts. Heart disease is rampant on both sides of our family. All our hearts have been broken at one time or another. Some are still sick and broken, including my own. Yet faith holds all our hearts.

Trusting in you, dear God, gives faith a chance to help our hearts. This trust leads to conversion and transformation. Our hearts change in your loving presence.

What power
can change
the human heart
but yours?
What love
can massage
a heart
to believe
but yours?
Who else,
but you,
O Lord?

Love, Andrea