Beating Heart
There is a baby inside of my womb without a heartbeat.
There is a life inside of me that stopped growing a few weeks ago.
There is a life created out of love but not sustained in my body because of an insufficient ability to grow.
While my situation is unique and few will really understand, I acknowledge that there are many of us walking around lifeless and without a heart beating for humanity.
The heart not beating inside of my womb didn’t choose to stop beating.
Perhaps yours didn’t either.
Perhaps your heart stopped being moved by humanity because of hurt, calloused over time and time again by more pain, rejection, anger, regret, and shame.
Perhaps your heart has stopped beating for humanity because you have faced your own insufficient ability to grow. An insufficient environment that never lent itself to anything gentle because you were just trying to survive. An insufficient willingness to look at yourself and change in ways that better reflect the One in whose image you were made. An insufficient effort to push back against the hardships of this world and refuse to be defeated or to sit idly by as others around you are defeated.
Perhaps the heart inside of your chest is still beating but the one within your soul has become so hardened by hurt that you are just going through the motions of life with a numbness.
The life inside of my womb didn’t choose to have a heart that stopped beating. While maybe you didn’t choose your calloused heart either…you can choose to be softened, yielded, and surrendered to a point of renewal that enables yours to grow, beat, and feel again.
The life inside of me doesn’t get a second chance. But you do.
What will you do with the beating heart inside your chest and the one down deep inside of your soul? How will you allow the beating of your heart to shape the culture of your own perspective, your family, your workplace, your school, your neighborhood, your church?
I dare you to take your beating heart (or the one calloused over) and allow it to be softened and be sensitive. To be slow to speak and quick to listen. Be slow to form an opinion and quick to learn. Be slow to selfishness and quick to sacrifice. Have a heart that beats with tenderness, gentleness, kindness, love, joy, peace, and goodness.
There is a baby inside of my womb without a heartbeat.
There is a life inside of me that stopped growing a few weeks back.
There is a life created out of love but not sustained in my body because of an insufficient ability to grow.
There is a weary heart inside of my chest and in the depths of my soul that keeps pushing on and trusting God despite my circumstances because I believe in the reward that I possess in Christ alone.
My heart may be weary but my God is stronger and better than the feeble nature of my humanity.
Weariness is never an excuse for immobility.
A weary heart can still mobilize the will into action or encourage the soul of another into change. Weary or not…the world is waiting for our hearts to beat and respond in such a way that it will never be the same.
The world is in desperate need of Jesus and those of us, in whom He resides, are the best hope the world has of meeting Him.
So weary hearted friends, get up and choose to embody a heart that beats strong for humanity. It is time that we possess and express a heart that truly reflects the love of our Father.
The heart of my unborn child will never get to beat again.
But yours can.
Take inventory of your heart, friends.
Let God perform the miracle and allow your heart to beat again for humanity.
And perhaps for the very first time, allow your heart to beat with His love and truly surrender your life over into His able care.
© Dani Hardy // June 4, 2020
Beating Heart