“In here,” she says…

The room is small and dark.

A hospital bed fills the center …

The glow from a computer screen brightens a dark corner…

Test equipment emits a quiet buzz.

“Lay down facing this direction.”

The tests begin.

Strange heart sounds fill the room.

Strange to ears that have never heard them before…

Strange to ears anticipating the thumping heart of movies and cartoons …

“Turn this direction,” she says.

As I turn, I see my heart for the first time…

Watch it beat.

And I realize…

The heart is a violent place.

My body masks a violent heart.

I always thought my heart sat quietly in my chest…

Beating slowly, calmly, methodically.

But now I am face to face with my heart…

And I see it for what it is…

A center of violent energy…

Just barely under control.

I turn my eyes away.

The myth of a calm, controlled heart is somehow comforting.

I feel the same about my spiritual heart.

Most days, I’d rather not look at it.

Rather not admit its barely controlled violence.

But God sees my spiritual heart every day…

Every second.

God Knows the things for which it beats…

The desires for which it lusts…

For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.   Matthew 15:19

Yet still He promises new hearts for old…

…I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you… Ezekiel 36:26

He tells us exactly how to use our new hearts…

“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” Luke 10:27

If we give our hearts to God…

Then, just as God sees our hearts…

He promises we will see Him…

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.  Matthew 5:8