Pieces of our heart

No one ever warns you as you cradle that tiny new life in your arms for the first time. But if they did, you couldn't hear them and certainly wouldn't believe them. God miraculously takes the love of a husband and wife and forms out of that love a brand new, entirely unique and beautiful eternal life in the form of a tiny infant--what an unfathomable, joyous miracle! But no one warns you that slowly that precious child will tear off little pieces of your heart, one at a time, as you love and let go, love and let go, and fling those wisps of your heart out into God's world.

We are preparing to take our oldest child to Charlotte in a few days where she will begin the next chapter of her life after college. I am so excited for her, so thankful to the Lord, but I woke in the wee hours of the morning today and tears slipped down my cheeks onto the pillow because she is growing up and going away--tearing away a bigger chunk of my heart. I can still remember taking her to first grade at Aldert Root and coming home and crying that my baby was now in school and gone from me all day long. And a little tiny piece of my heart was torn off and flung out into the heavens. Or when she no longer wanted to hold my hand when we walked to school--another little piece tore away. Or when she excitedly attended her first dance and rushed to a friend's house to get dressed. Or when she shut the door to her room upstairs to talk long hours with friends or flew by herself on an airplane to go to camp or packed up all her stuff as she joyously drove off to college. Piece after piece after piece of our hearts were torn away.

But here's the thing: I envision them as brilliantly colored slips of shining paper flung out into the universe, bringing beauty and color and brightness as they float along. We keep tearing, but God keeps transforming those torn bits into something glorious, perhaps something we will never see in this life, but something beautiful and glorious nonetheless. And while our hearts hurt and grieve over these repeated little losses, and while we keep tearing off those pieces, God keeps repairing and restoring and renewing our hearts. No, our hearts are never the same. There will be pain. There will be scars. But God, who makes all things new, makes our hearts bigger, more pliable, more compassionate, more sensitive to Him and to others.

Isn't this what we do with everyone in our lives that we love? Our spouses, our children, our parents, our siblings, our friends--we have to keep loving and letting go, loving and letting go, and entrusting to our Sovereign Lord--keep tearing off those little pieces of our heart and flinging them out, tiny pieces of colorful love in the world.

And so as we prepare to release Mary Norris out into this exciting new chapter of her life, those little pieces have become a big chunk of our hearts that is tearing away. We want to hold her close and not let her go, but God has been preparing us all along, painfully tearing and tearing those little pieces but then repairing, strengthening, rebuilding, and we trust that He will do the same with this bigger chunk that is being torn away. And like colorful balloons or ephemeral, beautiful butterflies, our hearts release those painful, precious pieces up into the sky. And we trust and we watch and we love and we thank and, painfully but miraculously, our hearts grow.

Is. 57:15 "For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: 'I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite.'" I looked up the word "contrite" and found the definition "to be humbled and repentant before God...crushed or beaten to pieces." Wow, that is what God is doing with each of us, if we will let Him--breaking our hearts into pieces that He might revive and renew and restore them more and more into the image of His own heart.

He is, right now, high and lifted up, inhabiting eternity. He dwells in the high and holy place and in unimaginable light--He is great and glorious beyond our imaginings. Yet He also dwells with "him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit"--He dwells with us whose hearts have been tore into piece after piece and He will revive and resurrect those hearts. It may hurt... a lot. It may take a while. But He has promised and His Word never ever fails. So release those little pieces and watch them float into the sky like colorful balloons and know that God is at work--in the world, in your loved ones, in your heart. And to Him, the glorious heart mender and reviver, be all the glory.