no roses...no chocolate...

Well, we've arrived at that day of the year when all of our attentions are on flowers, chocolate and hearts...Valentines Day. I thought long and hard about all the worn out and tired cliches that will be bantered about today...all the guilt driven sentiments...all the money that will be spent. All the hollow “I love you's” that will echo around the world. Do I sound like a total Valentine cynic? As far as the so called holiday goes...I am. I'm sorry and I apologize in advance if I am wrecking the day or the luvy-duvy mood for you. I just cannot stand how we are so manipulated and tugged at sometimes very cleverly by advertisers and others to believe that this day has anything at all to do with love and affection. It doesn't and shouldn't. It however is a day to make us perhaps focus on the heart both visually, emotionally and spiritually. I feel like if there is anything good that comes out of this day maybe that is it. As a nurse, I have lots of experience with the heart in many different respects...mostly the brokenness and illness of it and the effects on everyone because of that. One thing I have come to understand and appreciate is that there are a lot of sick and broken hearts in the world. Often times they are visible and sometimes not. Many of us go out of our way to hide that brokenness until it overpowers us with very bad consequences. I remember the first time I saw a real human heart...utterly fascinating. Needless to say, it didn't look like the typical bright red artistic representation we so often see. I was just amazed about the intricacy of the design and function. It wasn't until many years that I really understood it as the seat of the soul and tried to understand the spiritual aspect of the heart. The mechanical stuff is amazing enough but the emotive and spiritual aspect in nothing short of mind blowing. It is an aspect of humans that we will never know or understand and I am pretty sure that God intended it that way. There are over 800 times that the word heart is used in the King James Version of the bible...and over 400 in the Message bible. That's quite a difference. Yeah...you might say different language or translation...I say they cut a lot of the heart out. Just an observation. I remember when I saw heart surgery for the first time. I always wondered...how do they stop the heart from beating? Iced cold almost frozen slushy saline solution...BAM...comes to a dead stop...pardon the pun. It becomes cold and almost frozen...it stops...we die. No different from what happens spiritually, right? We lose our passion...the things that set our hearts on fire...we become lukewarm...then cold...heartless, as they say...then we die. That is an amazing parallel and I didn't get it for a really long time. I was no different that many of us and was walking around looking apparently quite normal on the outside but had a sick and growing sicker heart that was poised to kill me. This is the semi-perfect plan of Satan and that is to attack and capture our hearts and then kill us from there...sometimes slowly and sometimes faster. I was NOT lucky...I was blessed....I recognized the disease in time by the symptoms that were wrecking everything in my life and making others around me sick as well. Apparently another part of Satan's plan is to blind us to these symptoms and how sick we really are until it's almost too late. This is what we do...we ignore the warning signs. Oh, they were there all right...perhaps very subtle at first but become progressively worse. We rationalize away our tiny seemingly inconsequential sins until we have a full blown crisis on our hands. God knew that we were going to have heart trouble. He constantly reminded us our hearts were wicked and prone to deception. In Proverbs 28: 26 it says, “He that trusteth in his own heart is a fool”. He knew. And in Jeremiah 17: 9 it says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?”. He knew. What's the solution? Simple really...a heart transplant. Yeah...this is a service God provides for you with your wicked, deceitful and broken heart. In Ezekiel 11: 19 He says, “And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them an heart of flesh:”. Now how's that for a good deal? No lengthy hospital stays...no risk of complications or rejection...no lifetime of medications. Does that sound crazy? Am I reading too much into this here? No...actually, I don't think so. You see, it happened to me...I am a witness to the miraculous ability of God to redeem and restore us no matter how sick. The only thing that stands in the way is our stubbornness and refusal to submit and admit we are totally powerless to heal ourselves no matter how hard we try. It's called surrender. This is why there is such rampant self medication that we do to our selves with drugs, alcohol, porn, and material things. We have this basic flawed idea that we can treat this heart trouble with a bunch of meaningless and empty stuff. It is a paradox of extreme proportions and we don't have to look far to see it anywhere we are. There is this pain in the deep depths and recesses of our soul and we do our best to numb it however we can. We can't ignore it...we numb it. It doesn't go away. It's like a very hungry parasitic worm in our gut and no matter how much we eat...it isn't enough and does us no good to sustain life. The good news...we can escape this life robbing heart condition...just surrender. That's it...no more...no less...stop fighting...giving in doesn't mean giving up. So, today... take a look at your heart...not that fancy one that's red or pink and surrounded with a lacy paper doily and probably says something cheesy like...roses are red...violets are blue. I think Jesus probably...no, I'm sure... has a better one for you....and His says ...be mine...