Pieces of My Heart

As I lay here sleepless, my mind wanders over the past days, month and even years-

I remember many smiles, lots of laughter, tears of joy, and tears of grief- deep down in my soul to the point of physically aching.

I remember places- places of beauty, and poverty; of grandeur and emptiness; of man and of God.

But mostly I remember people- people I don’t remember meeting for the first time, people I only spent a moment with, people who took me in as a part of the family without question, people who laughed with me and more importantly cried with me-

In the words of Byron-

When Friendship or Love

Our sympathies move;

When Truth, in a glance, should appear,

The lips may beguile,

With a dimple or smile,

But the test of affection's a Tear:

Too oft is a smile

But the hypocrite's wile,

To mask detestation, or fear;

Give me the soft sigh,

Whilst the soultelling eye

Is dimm'd, for a time, with a Tear:

When I look forward, a sea of unknown memories, places, and people swim into view-

More pieces of my heart will be scattered to all the corners of this earth and some will journey to heaven before me.

Most days I am excited for these things that God has in store, but always I long for my heart to be all in one place- The more I look back on my life I see that on this earth it will never be. For that I chose to be thankful- what a gift of God to have given me so many wonderful though sometimes painful memories and what a wonderful variety I see in those who have taken pieces of my heart around the world and back again.

So tonight as I lay here sleepless- I look forward to heaven- The only place where my heart will truly be whole- When the pieces that have been scattered to the wind will all be in one place rejoicing with our Lord because of what He has done for us. That He chose to create relationships and that He wanted to have one with every one of us and make us all family-

This is for the family I am with now, that I will be leaving soon as well as the family I have met and left and Lord willing will be seeing soon and even the family I haven’t met yet. I look forward to the laughter and the tears- because we have the choice of hope and joy. Thank you Lord Jesus!