Monday, June 18, 2007

"Where Is Curly Mommy?"

I have mentioned before on Curly Mommy's Blog how much I respect her. I have been impressed with how real and honest she is in her testimonies and experiences. What I did not realize is that I have come to expect and even rely on her input on my blogs. I have heard that she has had computer troubles and for this reason she has not been blogging. Meanwhile, I have been waiting for her opinion on my latest blog. I have gotten comments in person from my wife and that is great, but I somehow feel like my blog is not complete until I know what Curly Mommy thinks. It's weird, but it's like I named her a "real person" on blogs and now I don't feel like I am unless she thinks so. ( not really. . . :). . . it's kind of like when you walk through the same door over and over and over again for years and every time you do, you raise your arm and slap the top of the door jam. . . and then someone raises the door jam a foot higher and when you go through, you swing to slap it and it's not there and you stumble forward wondering what just happened. . . it's kind of like that. . .only without the door or the slapping and stumbling and stuff.. . . . . . . Ok, my wife says that I'm rambling and that Curly Mommy just needs to come back.)

Come back, Curly Mommy.

Sunday, June 10, 2007

Broken hearts and the breath of God

I was in church today and during worship practice, one of the piano players was messing with some chords and it reminded me of a song that starts off: "I hear the voice of one calling, I hear the voice of one calling: Prepare ye, Prepare ye the way of the Lord. . ." I suddenly felt the Holy Spirit's presence and began to pray in my heart. I asked God to come into this place (the church) and to comfort the hearts and minds and spirits of the people gathered in His name. And as I prayed, I saw in my mind's eye a picture of a heart that had cracks in it.
So I asked God to heal the broke hearts of His people. But He responded: "I let them be broken." Before I could think that through, He said:"Watch and see what I can do with a broken heart." And as I watched, I saw the breath of God flow toward the heart and enter into the cracks of the heart. I expected to see the cracks mend and for the heart to be healed, but that's not what happened. The cracks began to glow and more cracks began to appear. The heart began to pulse and shake and light started pouring out of the cracks as they grew wider and wider until the pieces of what I now recognized as a shell around the heart began to snap and fall off revealing what at first looked like a raw and exposed heart underneath. Then, when the shell had completely fallen off, I saw that the heart was pumping and had a slight glow and it was growing. Then I heard God speak again: "When people get hurt they guard themselves so that it won't happen again, but they don't realize that the wounds that they receive are not sores to be 'healed', but openings for my breath of life to enter and bring life and growth. Instead they build a shell around their hearts so that they won't be hurt and also stop My opportunities to live through them and show them how limitless I can be in them. Every new wound is an opportunity to receive My presence and My life on a level greater than they knew before."

It was then that I realized the when Jesus said to turn the other cheek, it wasn't about being "walked all over", it was about us letting God touch a person from our cheek to their hand and God filling us with His love and compassion and allowing us to live in a reality not possible without His touch.