Sunshine Dreams to You: My Heart

I have had some weird issues over the years with my heart. They started in high school. Lots of testing. Useless diagnoses. Life moving on. Flutters (literally) here and there. Always around high stress times. Understandable. Easy to waive away. Last year the chest pains of my teen years came back with a vengeance. I was completing the purge and then there is work - entrepreneurship isn't for the faint of heart (literally) so I excused them away. They did pass once the purge was completed at year-end. Then yesterday...

I thought I would faint. My chest just ballooning inside of me. I was in 90 degree heat for over four hours on the side of the interstate in 5 p.m. traffic - in the middle of yet another work crisis this week. I pushed it away. Especially because I felt such peacefulness - perfectly calm in the middle of a hurricane. I asked God what it was and to give me fair warning if I was about to fall out (laughing a little at me dictating to God.) Then today as I sat down in the dentist chair for a six month cleaning, the same feeling came over me as yesterday. So...I asked God again, "What is this?"

I get back to the office and my business partner motions me into his...a stranger sits across the desk from him...he introduces me, but I barely hear his name...my partner says, "Read Heather that one text and she will know all she needs to know about you." He did, and I did. What transpired afterwards was an hour conversation, the man praying over me and Josh, and a new friendship born. Exactly what we needed today. Exactly. In that prayer, he mentioned verses and things that I have only shared with Sis and Sherri. I was stunned. Stunned.

I didn't get it. It wasn't all clicking until I was at Sonic after work tonight. Don't judge me. Mama Bear needed an ice cream cone; my people are trying to kill me - death by fill-in-the-blank.

I am sitting there and a man comes up to my window. He needs gas for his truck. I have cash (I never have cash), and I offer him some. He says, "Even more than money, can you pray for me?" I reply, "Yes sir, I can and will pray for you."

Since Austin, I am having encounters every few days with someone out of sorts, homeless, etc. who needs a little help, a meal for their child, gas money, prayer, and I have what they need when they ask.

Now....for someone that a) never carries cash, yet has had it on me when I have needed it every time; b) is awkward and uncomfortable in strange situations esp. when I have no control...Ummm....this is ALL outside of my comfort zone...norm.

So I am not saying I am the Grinch, but lets be honest...we all have walls up between us and them, us and things, us and fear, us and fill-in-the-blank....I am no different. I have stuff that makes me shrink back from living and being Jesus in my everyday life with everyday people just like you and me.

When the stranger (now friend) from this morning was praying over us he suddenly said, "Whoa Heather I feel that you have a wall and a divorce (all three of us opened our eyes and looked up)." I said, I am not getting a divorce; never been married. He replied, divorce doesn't just mean marriage.

He continued praying....and when he did he suddenly compared my "divorce" to a transition onto eagle's wings, Isaiah 40:31 - where I have been planted (Isaiah 40) since March 26, 2016.

This has been a tough week. Work challenges. I have been sick for three days now (as if my body is purging itself from the inside out - head, lungs, and now scar tissue that has built up in my foot from a surgery that was 16 years ago (you cannot make this up). Through all of this, I have felt perfect peace. I mean, I am stressed, but at peace in it. The world and the enemy keep dumping on my lap, and in one swoop, I am placing it at the foot of the cross. If you can visualize that, do. There is a single fluid motion that is occurring because I am not even letting the junk rest on my lap before I am scooping it up. As I do it, I can hear one of two songs in my head....

I always wondered what the Israelites were feeling and thinking as they walked around that wall. I mean, I am sure the emotions varied. Today...I know there were those who in their heart had already claimed the victory and they were laughing....joyously. I get it. I am there with them in spirit.

"Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us," - Hebrews 12:1

Jesus, thank you for coming for my heart. It wasn't dead, but it was dying and so much smaller than it should be...stretch it and me into whatever places and situations you see fit. I am uncomfortable and awkward and outside of my air cover, but I am trusting in you to make the way clear and provide for me what I need when I need it - in the big ways - just as you have been providing for others through me in the small ways. I love you. In fact, I don't know that I have felt this flutter in my heart for you and your ways since that little girl skipped through the church bus at the age of 4 pasting those smiley faces everywhere. How sad that I always gave the locale the credit for that joy...when it had been you that had placed that in my heart then. I pray I never again misplace the joy you are restoring in my heart....but let me give it away in the bucketfuls to all those that need it...*Deep Sigh* and Amen.