Prayer of the Heart

Tonight my heart was not sitting in front of a large LCD screen. It was not with me when my wrist curved to the left and right clicking the mouse to create a page layout. It was not with me as I stared dully and read about the new SRC president and the new housing complex.

My heart was on its knees, pleading in simple supplication to the Most High for plethora of adjectives that could sooth my frazzled nerves.

Help me remember, it begged.

Help me forget those who have done me wrong, it yearned.

Fill me with kindess and charity, it implored.

Keep the cracks and tares of my calloused chambers at bay so I might perform properly, it pleaded.

This foolish, fickle heart of mine is often my most transparent window to my soul. Tonight, it beat stilly, softly, soundly in a cage. A cage I keep locked expect to the very few. Each rib bone protecting the calloused wreck is nothing but another weapon crafted to keep the world out and at a comfortable distance.

But every so often, on cool evenings such as this, I can see beyond those sturdy bars into the depths of my own being. I pass through layers of fears, layers of worries, layers of distrust, layers of caution to an expanse and wide field of a brilliant, glowing substance: love.

It's a love that when released, penetrates every organ, cell and molecule. It is enough to extend to the stranger in the grey hoodie and ear buds to my left. The dulled voices that drone behind me. It extends to people who live in cities I've never been to, and countries, the names of which I cannot spell. It is a love that extends beyond the confines of gravity, the barriers of the atmosphere and the far reaches of the universe. It is a love that is rooted deep with in my Savior, Jesus Christ, and therefore knows no boundaries of time, space or matter.

I let out a deep sigh of relief. Buried deep in my soul is this love. But my troubled mind and bruised heart threaten to hold it prisoner.

Perhaps fear is the great inhibitor. Perhaps the unknown. Perhaps doubt, or weakness or pride or a multitude of reasons keep me from basking in the expanse of the deepness of my soul's capacity.

But on night's like tonight, when the last of summer seems to dwell in the air, reminding me of people now gone, loves now lost and moments now reduced to a memory that the rust that has been building up around the hinges of my cage begins to crumble.

The love is beginning to penetrate. It's nights like this quiet September evening that push me to be a better person.

And slowly and surely, the prayer of my heart is heard.