A SICK HEART

My husband is on some new medications as the doctor tries to find a way to effectively manage his bloodpressure/heart problems. Side effects of said medicines include, among other things, a general, persistent feeling of yuckiness and disrupted sleep patterns.

Steve was up until about 1:00 Saturday night, came to bed and flopped around for a couple of hours, gave up on sleep and relocated to the living room to read a couple of hours, then finally came back to bed around 5:00 and passed out from exhaustion. Needless to say, he does not feel great the day after such a miserable, restless night.

The doctor told Steve his heart problems were hereditary. In the genes. Unavoidable, really. So, while a healthy diet and regular exercise are good things, they could not have prevented the present situation.

Sort of like my heart condition. Oh, you can't monitor the sickness of my heart with a blood pressure cuff, or treat it with a combination of pills. But my condition, like Steve's, is hereditary. In the genes. I have a wicked and diseased heart that I inherited from my father, Adam.

Steve has learned to recognize when his blood pressure is elevated, even without the cuff. He gets a certain weird feeling. When my sick heart is having a spasm, I am also alerted by a certain feeling. A feeling of heightened nervousness and irritability, like having consumed way too much caffeine. A period of hyper-critical sensitivity. Moodiness. Preoccupation with myself. Frustration with unmet expectations. A general feeling of yuckiness.

Thankfully, God has promised me a new heart, a transplant (Ezekiel 36:26). What I'm beginning to realize is that this transplant is not a fast, check-in-check-out procedure. God is tearing away the old, sick heart a piece at a time, and replacing it bit-by-bit with living tissue from Christ's heart. Sometimes I wish He would just rip all the old dead stuff out at once...get it over with quick. I want a completely new and healthy heart NOW. But that's not how He is working.

Instead, He gives me some days that seem positively glorious, when my heart feels strong and alive...and other days, sick days, when I am painfully aware of the weakness of my heart, gasping for the Gospel. Maybe He wants me to be acutely conscious - right up to the very moment I step into Glory - of how desperately I need this new heart.