Written August 2009

How is your heart?

I want to share a little something about mine. Even though I have not had any physical heart problems, I have suffered from spiritual heart problems for the majority of my life. When I was in my early teens I developed a condition known as having a "Hard Heart". It went for years undetected and then one day for no particular reason I began to sense that something was wrong with my life. This feeling had been gradually growing inside me and had finally, after many, many years it reached a level that I could no longer endure. It had been so gradual and undetected I fooled myself into thinking that everything was all right with me. Even though I had been keeping God at arms length I prayed for him to help me break away from the pain of a Hard Heart that I had not even recognized. I didn't know what was wrong with me but I knew that I needed help.

I had grown numb to the feeling. My Hard Heart had become a source of survival for me. While I had grown physically and mentally since my early teens, my spiritual growth stopped abruptly. There were several personal experiences that lead to the development of my Hard Heart. There was my parent's divorce, separation from my church, along with all of the other traumas associated with being a teenager. In my adult years I experienced one disastrous relationship after another. I stumbled through life tripping, falling, and getting hurt along the way. Had it not been for my Hard Heart, I would have been devastated by my many, many mistakes. The more I messed up the Harder my Heart became. It was like a self-healing catastrophe. The healing came from another layer of hardener. The next layer always harder than the last.

I'm sure most of you have seen pictures on TV of starving children. They appear sick, malnourished, and near death. They are covered with sores. They have flies buzzing around them. To look at them nearly breaks your heart and makes your stomach queasy. Sometimes we would rather pretend they didn't exist. If you had seen a picture of the spiritual me just ten years ago, my spirit would have looked just like those starving children.

A starved spirit is just what you would expect to find when it has not been feed for over forty years. That was me. My Hard Heart was keeping me from feeding my spirit. It seemed so natural but at the same time it felt so unnatural. I had not understood that I was made in an image that was comprised of body, mind, and spirit. I had been ignoring my spiritual self. My spirit was totally malnourished and near death. To look back I am amazed that I let my self become so unbalanced. I had been regularly feeding the body of me and the mind of me. Even though much of the nourishment was junk food, these parts were regularly fed. I thought I could do without the spirit of me. It was completely ignored. I wanted to pretend that it didn't exist.

There are many advantages of having a Hard Heart - nothing gets in and nothing gets out. Your heart becomes less breakable. You don't have to get "close" to people. You can avoid being "hurt" by other people and unpleasant situations. It is your shield, shelter, and protection. Unfortunately, these characteristics are a double-edged sword. They are also the disadvantages. My Hard Heart prevented me from feeding my starved spirit.

Fortunately for me, God never gave up on me. He had a purpose for me and was just waiting for me to respond to His Love. His gentle touch began to soften my Hardened Heart. It was a gradual softening but much quicker than the years it took to create the shell of "protection" and "security". I am Blessed by His Grace and Patience. If you know someone that is suffering from the same heart affliction that I was, He is waiting for them, too. How is your heart?

Here if you need me,

Chaplain Sonny