rewind a sec..

sorry I have to back it up a bit, this post is for last week, but still wanted to share! So I have been thinking a lot about suffering and about how there seems to be a theme of suffering in almost every meditation last week on sincere love for people. It kind of blows my mind that sincere love has to come with sincere death. And in that death, suffering. Love and suffering go hand in hand. We can either choose to lay our hearts and our bodies at the foot of the cross or we can be stubborn, resist suffering because we know it hurts, and then get taken to the cross. (which in my experience hurts worse) Suffering is inevitable.

I like the parable Jesus tells about the two different foundations we build our house on, one man builds his house on the sand, the winds and storms come and it falls, another on the rock, the winds and storms come, but it stands. Usually i focus on the fact that the house built on the rock-Jesus, stands, but this time what stood out to me was the fact that it doesn't matter what our foundation is, everyone will face the storms. Its not our foundations that predict the outcome of the storms, but the storms (that will come) that reveal our foundations. Jesus will shake our lives, we will be rocked, we will be brought to our knees, we will hurt, and in the end, if He is our foundation - what we have built our identities, hope, and security on, we will stand.

When I think about death being complete isolation and abandonment, I know Jesus is calling me to the complete isolation and abandonment of my heart. I got this cool (slash semi graphic) visual today of waking up in the morning, reaching into my chest, pulling out my heart and replacing it with His. Abandoning and isolating myself from MY heart that beats for MY hopes, MY dreams, MY desires, and putting HIS heart that was made to die, that beats for OTHERS into my chest, to pump life through my body. A heart that gives me the love and courage necessary to spread my arms out wide waiting for the nails.