Wisdom Works
January 23, 2017
Three Steps To Peace
January 23, 2017
All MY Heart?
It was the summer of 1998….
I was at one of the lowest of low times. My marriage of nearly 16 years had come to a screeching halt. The police had responded to my first, my only, 911 call. With one call, light fell on the dark secret shame that shadows every battered woman.
When the dispatcher asked me, “Did he hit you?” my world stopped spinning. Everything became slow and deliberate as I heard a high pitched cry rise from the place that words fail. The wail of a broken heart…I found a whisper with voice and said, “Yes”.
With that one honest simple answer a flood of back waters rushed out the gate. The iron bars of silent suffering were broken and the weight of the dark waters couldn’t be contained.
The police came. They made him leave. Orders of protection were initiated. I navigated through the first days like a small boat in heavy fog.
I reached for the hem of Jesus much like the woman in the Bible story. She had suffered with an issue of blood for years. In a final act of desperation she defied her unclean state and publically pursued Jesus. When she touched the hem of His garment, a flow of virtue from Jesus healed her.
I love the story. But unlike the nice lady with the issue who touched His robe, I grabbed His hem, tied a knot and held on for dear life!  After a while, I began to lose my grip.
The final blows had left me with severe injuries to my neck and shoulder. I would have 3 surgical procedures and 2 years of physical therapy to repair the damage to my body. The injury to my spirit, heart and soul ran deeper than the surgeons’ blade and healing has been more of a process than an event.
I was exhausted. I was broken, in extreme pain, desperate and disappointed….in God. I had served Him with all my might and now where was He? What had it all been for?
I opened my Bible and as if leaping off the pages, the words enlarged and backed with light and like a megaphone blasting in my soul….
“I know the plans I have for you…. they are good and not evil…..plans for a future and a hope….you will seek me and find my when you seek with all your heart!” (Jer. 29:11-14)
Oh great! The future could be good. All I had to do was seek with all my heart. The problem?
My heart was broken and I feared it was simply worn out.
 It was as if I crawled up on His lap and lay my face to His heart, His face to my heart and there I peeked into the long locked up chambers. I saw self-righteousness had insidiously set up housekeeping. I saw hatred and resentment. I saw a victim mentality packed and ready to move in…. I saw dirty darkness and broken places. To me it would have been far less costly to junk the whole thing and start over. It seemed…beyond repair. But God said no! He found it beautiful, even desirable. He wanted my heart, all of it. He wanted the ugly, the broken, the infested….He saw beyond that and saw…me. The “me” that had been battered, threatened, and shamed into a dark locked up secret chamber. The imprisoned little girl whose song had been silenced, the unwanted adolescent, the unloved woman, He wanted it all and was willing to pay the ransom for my heart, for ….me. All of me.
It costs. It cost God his Son. It cost me, too. There are Holy currencies for these types of treasures. The currency of heaven found only in brokenness, humility, repentance, forgiveness, both sought and given… I can honestly say it’s been worth every tear I cried, every loss has been for my gain.
God wants my heart, and everything in it! I give Him my heart. Divine surprise! He gives it back to me! Touched, changed, larger, lighter, kinder, softer, sweeter, more…like His.
Kathy Norman
Kathy Norman
I enjoy sharing the creativity the Lord has placed inside of me with others. I pray you are truly blessed by what you see, hear, and experience on these pages.