wholehearted

Through the course of grieving divorce these past six months, I have found that tangibles and rituals seem to offer some bit of help for me.  Early on,  in the midst of considering the broken hearts of my family, I had an image in my mind of four broken hearts in four little dishes that I could see, touch, and pray over.  I even went to a gift shop in March while I was in Arizona, and found marble hearts that I thought would be too difficult to bust up, so I set aside the notion to make this idea tangible, and instead, decided to keep the mental image only.  

Fast forward to a few weeks ago.  I was visiting my friend, Alice, on her porch, and she showed me a book she was reading that she thought I would be interested in reading also.  There, on the cover, was a full marble heart in a dish, much like the image I had had in my mind, but my mental picture had been of a broken heart.  Right then and there I was stopped in my thought life.  Of course.  God longs for us and offers us a life of wholeheartedness.  This Healer wanted to remind me that morning that He desires to take our brokenness and make us new, whole, and fully alive in Him. He would rather my focus and prayers be on Him and newness and wholeness, rather than on me and a fixed gaze on the broken pieces of our lives.   

I shared this God-revealing moment with Alice.  A few days later, I found the book and a whole, marble heart gifted to me on my desk.  I went out and bought 3 more whole hearts.  nh and sh chose their colors, and these hearts sit in a oft visited place on our kitchen counter serving to remind me to pray for wholeheartedness as I look at them and hold each one.  

"Here's what I'm learning personally about wholeness.  I'm learning that it can't be managed.  It can't be scheduled.  It can't be attained in seven easy steps or three key disciplines.  And while disciplines and boundaries and wise life choices are building blocks of a life well-lived, we learn wholeness, more often than not, when our boundaries are shattered, when our disciplines fail us, when our theologies stump us, when our supposedly wise choices betray us.  We learn by un-learning, by stumbling and falling into the very thing we attempted to gain on our own terms.  This, I believe, is the deep wisdom of my Christian tradition.  Like love, wholeness is discovered in a thousand disappointments, embarrassments, and missteps.  It's discovered as our egos are shattered in the inviting presence of Another, One who calls us to belong.  It's experienced as a unity within ourselves and with our world that is indescribably satisfying."  -Chuck DeGroat Wholeheartedness p.7