When I give my Heart

This is an incomplete thought... Something I'm mulling over and dealing with.

I know that I'm allowing Satan to steal from our family. That I'm allowing him to use the hurt we experienced from our last church family to prevent us from diving into another church. And that by allowing this we are losing out on the relationships, growth, family bonds, and support we could gain from the church family God has for us now...

I'm not even complaining anymore about what already happened. It happened. It was yucky. I have lost even more respect for pastors. I am more aware than ever that pastors are sinful humans just like me. (God, let me not forget that, I'm just as messed up as this pastor and his wife, just in different ways, ways that I'm comfortable and easy with, but to You, God, it's ALL sin. Some sins aren't better than others...)

Now I'm trying to figure out how to get back in there. How to open up my heart to the possibilities while still protecting my heart. I love this song and knew it long before Celine Dion made it popular, "When I give my heart, it will be completely, or I'll never give my heart... When I give my heart, it will be forever..." The only way I seem to know to give my heart is completely... And I don't want to cut that part of myself off. It seems to me that Jesus gave his heart completely away. He died for his love. How can I expect to follow him and do less? I guess I can't really see Jesus protecting his heart from involvement... I see him keeping his heart and eyes and soul fixed on his father- that was the only protection he chose. To be so deeply hooked into his father and his father's image of who he was and what his life was to be that the other things were merely passing.

I remember Jesus words as he looked over Jerusalem, "Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem,.. How I have longed for you. How often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!" I don't hear this words spoken in a distant and cold British accent, I hear them loudly, passionately spoken by a Jewish young man. His compassion and mercy and longing come through here... His passion comes through here- at least when I hear these words in my imagination...

I want to be passionate about the work I do for Him. I want to be passionate about worship and the people He brings into my "sphere of influence". I want to be actively involved. I want to be 'pro-active'. Wildly, passionately involved and caring... I want the passion, drive and obedience that guided Jesus to guide my life and my choices.

I've got two other songs bopping around in my head right now...

"I am a rock. I am an island."
Something I longed for as a teenager- to be able to be strong without needing anyone else... Oh, please, God, let me not long for that!! Please let me be mature enough to know that Your will is NOT that we stand on our own, but that we be deeply involved with the lives of those around us. That we be planted deeply in the soil of our church family and the ministry ground around us. Please let me long for the things that make your heart burn, the things of eternity, the things that will last- people, not places; souls, not things; eternity, not programs...

"I have always longed for adventure. To do the things I've never dared...
My heart should be wild with rejoicing, Oh, why am I so scared?"
God has a plan for us. A new place. He is the one who allowed us to 'lose' the last church. He is the one who allowed us to be moved on, and there was a reason. I don't know what that reason is- whether he had a new place for us, or we needed to be somewhere else for him to do what he needed to do at SPBC, or he was testing us to see if we are ready for the next things he had for us, or quite frankly, it could have been all of those reasons, plus more. My God is a God who brings all things together for His good purposes. He sees the big picture and knows what is best for His children...

God, I'm close to breaking through here... I'm sorry it's taken me so long. I DON'T know what you're doing here. I don't know why you kept us here for another winter when we were so ready to just leave. I don't know why you didn't guide us find another church quickly. I don't know why we're still in Fairbanks. I feel trapped and old and used up. Please bring us a fresh wind. Please give us a place of usefulness and involvement. Please help us take off the hands we are holding so tightly over our wounded hearts. We're holding them so tight that you can't even get in there to clean the wounds out. How can we heal if we don't even let you in there to clean them?