heart

the heart is a fascinating thing to me. it's just got so many capabilities. it has the ability to love like crazy. it has the ability to be broken. it has the ability to mend. to heal. it can do so many things. the heart, in my opinion, is one of God's greatest creations. how He ever thought up all of the emotions it could possibly feel, I have no idea.

i have struggled to understand my own heart. why it's been broken like it has. why it still manages to beat even when my whole being is crumbling down. how it's somehow repaired itself. but all along, it was God who kept it running. keeping it alive. because He knew that one day, it would see joy again. it just had to get through some rough places first. before i could see the light at the end of the tunnel, i had to experience darkness. complete and utter darkness in order to understand what true light actually is.

now i know. it's taken me forever, but now i understand. and that new kind of joy has taken me so many places.

* * * * * * *

for seven long years, i put all that i had into one relationship. laid my heart flat out there, holding nothing back. when i lost that relationship, my heart went with it. all that i had, it just didn't exist anymore.

i've spent forever trying to get it back. and once i finally had, i begun the long process of letting Jesus heal it.

i believe in the power of healing. all the way. completely. i've seen what it can do. what trusting in Jesus and His perfect plan can do.

i also know what it is to love with wild abandon. when you think you know what you're doing, and it all seems like the right thing to do and you'll never have any regrets, only to have your entire world crushed. that's when you lose faith. faith in Jesus. faith in love, in general.

there are days when i feel like something i love is on the line, at risk.
those are the days when i panic the most.
like if i lose it, i could go back to square one.
a place, a really hard place that i don't want to ever be again.

there are days when i wonder if i would be better off putting up some fences, guarding my feelings just a little bit. all my life, love has been about giving it all or nothing. i am trying to teach myself now that some things aren't meant to give everything too. some kinds of love are only meant to go so far, and they may never grow past a certain point. it hurts to think that not all of my loves will be on fire, but that's okay. no relationship is perfect. no relationship is meant to be that way. how can i expect a relationship to be perfect when neither of the people that make it up are?

i'm not saying build up walls. never do that. i'm just saying that you have to expect problems. you have to expect the inevitable imperfections that come with loving someone. 

over the last couple of weeks i have been thinking that maybe the reason Jesus took the one thing i felt i had in the world away was to grow my love and my trust in Him. now, as i begin to rely a little bit on other people the way i used to, i feel that same tug again. like He's telling me i'm beginning to fall backwards by fully trusting one human again. and so i have been meditating on this verse:

"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose."  - Romans 8:28

trusting Jesus with all the love i have is one of the hardest things for me. but in the midst of feeling like i am losing something, He is showing me that He works through it all. that i have been called according to His purpose. and in the end, He works only for the good of those who love Him.

i love Him. and if at sometime in my life He decides to take away and mend again, then it is another chance for me to learn. learn that the only real, true and perfect love that will ever exist is Jesus Love. the only kind that, in the end, will remain.

tattoo photo credit goes to For King and Country via instagram.

joy,
hannah