Paper Hearts

I see myself scurrying along a shoreline. I'm holding paper hearts to my chest. They look like something a child has cut out for a school project. I'm dropping them here and there and stooping to pick them up as they fall. So far, so good. 

This image washed over me. It rolled over my conscious mind as I sat here, the last bit of a live worship song playing on YouTube. The last few piano notes trailing, the chorus softly repeated.

It wasn't a vision from heaven. No. It was a deep yearning to return to the ocean at sunset (I live hours away). It was a deep yearning to return to the simplicity of childhood (mine and my sons'). It was a deep yearning to hold fast to the treasures I learned in all three places. It was a desperate longing to be whole again. All of this captured in a flashing image. The beach at sunset.

Where is the beach of my heart? Where does the Holy Spirit lap like the waves that kiss the shore? Where Does He roll over me? In my quiet place, the pen of my computer in hand. The place where words, those instruments that hardly wrap themselves around thoughts so ragged, jagged and wild, line up in an order that others can decipher. Every one of us has walked the wilds of torment, hardship, grief, pain. When you are raw with it, you can hug the summer wind and it seems to have nettles. So happy, so happy, that expression, whether by words, whether by art, whether by tears or by hard work, can start the healing, hope-filled journey back to normal strength! God is in me, around me, and for me. He is so able in every place in which I am decidedly not. This is such good news. 

There will be laughter again. There will be joy again. There is love and there is peace now. There is the unique fellowship of the Father, of the Son, of the blessed Holy Spirit. I am alive in them and they in me. I cannot fail in this place of supply. I can only soar. I can only soar.