Journey Of The Heart

  
Over the last few years, I’ve been learning about the value of relationship and the significance of healing through relationship and love. I’ve learned of the heart’s capacity to connect two or more people and it is one of the most powerful things I have ever experienced.

For myself, relationship has never been easy. I still find myself needing to work on the very concept, which for others seems easy. I am in constant pursuit of learning the attributes of God’s heart in order to uncover my own heart, so the life-beat of who He is may resonate within me too.

The more I learn and see, the more enticed I am to the chase.

I can remember as a child living in the pain of dysfunction. However, through it all, there was an underlying hope for something more. Despite the depletion of mind, body and spirit, there was an unexplainable, almost extinguished at times, but ever-present hope.

Even through my darkest nights as an adult, it never left me. There was a hope, not my own, but it was whispered to me in silence when I was young, “Your pain will not be forsaken, your story will not be lost.” I certainly didn’t understand this when I was young, but none the less these words were engraved upon my heart.

Unfortunately, the message of these words was often stolen from me as life’s hurts caused my heart to harden, and the truth fell unheard. My broken heart was desperate for self-preservation from the very people who were supposed to offer me relationship. I did not have the tools to develop healthy relationships, so I came to assume that pain was just part of the concept.

Relationship became defined as “failure, rejection and abandonment.” My heart became locked, and guarded. It was an armory loaded with all of the ammunition for warfare. Allowing anyone to enter close was forbidden. My many unwarranted experiences taught me to be guarded. I learned to fight or flee. I mastered the art of becoming numb to everyone. I wasn’t equipped to trust in a world that was not trustworthy.

The years that bound my heart to pain left repeated seasons of failure, some seasons would be lost forever. The fear of rejection, and false impressions of never being good enough, kept me from participating in relationship on practically any level.

My untouchable heart left the inability to thrive in relationship.

However, the message of hope kept resurfacing and reminding me that I needed more and craved something beyond my pain. As I listened to this quiet message, I slowly started to gain what had always been kept from me.

Learning to become vulnerable, to love, to open and become exposed, has been one of the hardest transitions in my life. Without the tools and understanding I had lived most of my life with a barrier keeping me from aligning with God. So one of His greatest gifts – relationship – had been lost in my fallen world.

Learning about the love of God my Father, love that is merciful and full of grace, has taught me to trust for the first time.

I now understand what could never be understood. God created our hearts to love and to connect. The desire that God has for us to believe in Him, to search for Him, and discover Him, is far greater than our ability to understand. It is a hunger He has placed within us, for only something He can provide. There is so much more depth and satisfaction in now having a healthy relationship with my Heavenly Father. It provides the core of discovering who I was created to be, instead of knowing only what the world had left me to be.

He wants to take us on a journey of the heart, His heart.

He doesn’t need it, but He truly loves us and desires for us to choose it, to follow after His persistent yet quiet call.

I used to question why everything I pursued left me empty. Why everything I chased left me hurting. What I want to tell you now is that our hearts constantly hunger for the One who created us with the capacity to love, Jesus. 

In order for hearts to be filled, they need to connect with Jesus.

A choice is all it takes. The desire to love and follow Him is all that is necessary. He is waiting at any season to meet us, connect with us, and walk us out of brokenness and darkness. 

The journey of the heart begins by saying yes to Him. He will do the rest.

 Today, won’t you follow Him? 

  

         Baring His Beauty, 

         Tiffany Thomas