When Your Heart is Trying To Tell you Something...

This morning I woke up earlier than I wanted to. Last night, I was home relatively early for a Friday night after seeing A Midsummer Night's Dream and having dinner with a couple of friends, but I was hoping to sleep in late today. After I realized there was no extra sleep for me this morning, I got out of bed, turned on the space heater, and poured myself a couple of coffee; the whole time the song Hard 2 Love was playing over and over in my head... I curled back up in bed with my coffee and started to read, all the while humming "I'm hard to love, hard to love, I don't make it easy, I couldn't do it if I stood where you stood. I'm hard to love, hard to love, you

say that you need me, I don't deserve it but I love that you love me good". I had opened up my Bible and finished Judges yesterday so my bookmark was at Ruth, which is a beautiful story about a woman who refuses to give up on her mother-in-law. She leaves her home and all she knows because of her dedication to the woman who has become her family. In the process of her doing what she needs to for the two of them to survive, God blesses her with a marriage that brought her and her mother-on-law love, security, wealth, and a child. Even if you're not a follower of Christ, the story is such a beautiful and in your face picture of what love being lived out looks like. So I'm trying to read, but my humming has turned into a full out singing "I am insensitive. I have a tendency to pay more attention to the things that I need. Sometimes I drink to much. Sometimes I test your trust, sometimes I dunno why you're staying with me. I'm hard to love, hard to love, I don't make it easy..." and I stopped... closed my Bible... took a deep breath... turned my heart toward heaven and was filled with gratitude. I realized the reason that my heart gravitated toward that song is because it is very aware of the unfathomable love that is lavished on me everyday. It's only in the last few years that my heart has truly started to grasp that I am loved by The Creator Of The Universe. I mean, as long as I can remember I have known Jesus loves me like I know gravity keeps me from floating. I would sing it over the babies and children I watch and pray it over the students and adults I worked with. But I didn't know it like I know my breath. Having asthma, for the most part I am usually aware of my breathing. Several years ago I stopped taking my over the counter meds and have learned to control it through what I eat and and vitamins, but it's still there. So if I run up a flight of stairs without first warming up to it, I am not thrown off because my lungs feel like they're closing. I know my breathing and I know what I need to do. So when I go hiking later today and approach steep inclines, I know to slow my pace so I won't get winded. I won't worry about it and will be able to enjoy the beauty of Fall. I know my breathing and all its little idiosyncrasies. That is how I now know God loves me. There are days when life feels overwhelming and my heart starts closing up much like my lungs do running up a flight of stairs. But I don't freak out, for long anyway, because I know that I am loved by a good God who has everything in control. So through my tear stained eyes I can tell Him that I don't like what's going on. I can ask Him to move heaven on behalf of me, the daughter He loves, and know that no matter what happens, He hears and works all things for my good... Even though so often I feel hard to love... Even though I feel like I am a short fuse and a wrecking ball... I can rest in the fact that who I really am is in Him. I am His daughter. I am holy. I am, dare I say, a saint. So I'll keep singing Hard 2 Love because well, it's a great song, and every time I hear it I will be reminded of the gratitude my heart has because it is so aware I am loved by a holy God.