Heart Matters Blog

 …and He answered by setting me free. —Psalm 118:5bMy youngest son was a stop-and-smell-the-roses kind of kid. He always had a pocket full of rocks to show me at the end of the day, along with an explanation of why each one was such a treasure to him. On more than one occasion, he brought home a special little "friend," from a tiny toad to a fuzzy, black and orange caterpillar he discovered who knows where?Caterpillars were his favorite though. So, on one occasion we let Kyle keep his furry friend, making a little habitat for him so we could watch his activities up close and personal.Over time, the big glass jar we had filled with branches, morphed into the home of a brownish cocoon. Month after month we watched and waited. We even went to the library to check out books on caterpillar...

"Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive" (Brené Brown). I love this. Brene Brown has been one of my favorite authors for a long time and her words continue to inspire and challenge me. What if we had a whole world full of people who felt alive and full of life? That would be a stark contrast to the stress and fatigue that is so often felt in the world today. How do we work toward a world that is alive? God created each of us as individuals. We each have a unique set of gifts, experiences, and interests. It is our privilege to be able to discover those gifts. To explore the heart that God gave us and how our experiences have played a role in shaping the personality that we were born with. It is t...

Isn't that what each of us is ultimately seeking? To be loved unconditionally and unfailingly? Our heart's cry at gut-level?To have our inner heart's yearnings and dreams understood. To have our ugliness exposed and received in love's care, with no worries of being shunned or discarded. We have sought this love in other people. And it fell short. Well below the mark of what books and movies promulgated, the fabrications spun.I want to know this unfailing love that the prophets and kings so often regale in the Bible. God's unfailing love. Our Creator. Our Father. David especially grasps this (NLT):I will be glad and rejoice in your unfailing love, for you have seen my troubles, and you care about the anguish of my soul. Psalm 31:7Let your unfailing love surround us, Lord, for...

It felt important to pick up the dead butterfly. I was out on my regular walk and much of my time on the path I am listening to a podcast or audio book, on this day I was listening to Falling Upward, a book by Father Richard Rohr. The other part of its title and the heart of the subject is "A Spirituality for the two halves of Life". Those words, this book, has come at such the season. A release, stopping, review and turning. A real life example to the phrase I was privy to a number of years ago, "It's a wise person who knows what time it is". I guess that's why it felt important to pick up the dead butterfly.My experience has been this. Fashioned upon the path that we all walk are the environments, stories, communities and sometimes painfully metaphorical and physical pictures that h...

​"Dear Jesus, do something." ― Vladimir NabokovOne of my hubby's favorite movies is Bruce Almighty. Bruce is a down-on-his-luck TV reporter who complains to God that he is not doing his job correctly. But, then God offers him the chance to try being God himself for one week. His first response was to answer all the prayers of the people with a simple yes. However, he soon learned it was not that simple after all. He thought if he answered yes to everyone's prayers it would all go smoothly. But instead it made a huge mess of things…fast. Sometimes we believe God isn't doing his job correctly either. Especially when he doesn't answer our cries for help in the way that we think he should. Or when it drags on for weeks, months or even years.Have you ever felt as if your prayers were bouncing o...