I Have You in My {Broken} Heart

I am really more of a letter writer than a blogger. Somehow I never find my truest voice on my blog. I have been frustrated and angry with myself for not getting to the place where I let my truest self rise to the surface. Writing to an invisible audience stumps me. That's not the case with letters.

When I am writing a letter, words in an email or on a piece of paper, my written voice finds its soul. 

Many times, I end those letters with the salutation, “I have you in my heart.”

I'm amazed at the people and places the Writer has etched on my heart over the years. As I trusted Him more and more with the relationships and circumstances of my life, He writes his love for people, for the world on my heart of flesh.

Some of those written there, I know well. Some, I don't know at all.

The variety of names and faces (sometimes only a name with no face) written on my heart astonishes me as they form in my consciousness while I unload the dishwasher, dry my hair, or make the bed. One after another they come to my mind when I am driving alone in the car. 

All things are from God, even the prompting to pray. He loves people and loves to use people to offer the ministry of prayer on behalf of others.

This didn’t happen for me overnight---this discernment that leads me to pray for those written on my heart. There was more written there than I was aware. I came to understand this over a lifetime of submitting my heart to the Writer.

Praying for others draws my heart closer to the One who loves me, loves them. God has them in his heart.

As I have grown more in the grace of God, more assured in His love and forgiveness, I have consciously set my intentions to be open to His writing. I do this by asking for a name when someone needs prayer, saying it out loud. I don’t memorize it or keep a long list in journal. God is faithful. He remembers when we forget. He doesn’t forget to call out to us those he has written on hearts.

But we won't hear his prompting if we aren't listening, if we insist on living in noise and distraction. We have to be willing still in the silence, to ask God to bring to mind the joys, the sorrow, the need and provision. He wants us to dream with others, remind him that He created the person on your heart to bring Him glory.

Of course, there are the expected relationships that sit right on top of my beating heart who I pray for over and over. There are others who have come to me in the living of life (and incredibly through blogging.)

And then, there are my in real life friends…maybe I have told them too many times that I have them in my heart? It's hard to express how much in your heart someone is---someone you known for half your life, how much they mean to you, how much your heart cares for their heart. Have I used my salutation so much that it no longer carries the weight it once did?

I often think I don’t communicate well in person. My intense passion doesn’t reveal the softer side of me. I am a truth-teller, intuitive to a fault (if that can be and I think it can.) Though I have tried to tone it down, bow to the softer-gentler me, she roars to the forefront on undisciplined days, shows her true colors. I am sure my intensity has caused others to walk wide circles around me.

I promise, I don’t bite. (Unless, I am hormonal.)

I write letters. Some I send. Some I don’t. 

Today my heart is soft and pliable. I haven’t connected to it often in the past few weeks, fearing its ache, protecting myself from the brokenness that I might find there.

“The Lord is near to the broken-hearted.” (Ps. 34:18)

So today I take the risk to let down, let go of the strong I have been propping up for days. I am ready to embrace the weak, the broken. I am ready to risk my heart to hear new names, let new chapters be written, to live with expectancy rather than expectation. My ears are listening, listening for who or what has been written on my heart when I was unaware.

Today, should I write any letters, I may change my signature ending to…

”I have you on my {broken} heart...”

Because there is a good chance I do.

Thanks for the many prayers lifted for me and for my Dad over the past weeks. Tomorrow he begins his first day of collection of stem cells for his transplant that will most likely happen at the beginning of next year. We have waited for this day and we are thankful.

Will you give the privilege to pray for you?


Linking with Jennifer at #TellHisStory and Emily at Imperfect Prose