Love...Heart...Soul...Strength

My friend Marilyn asked me if I could work some magic with a wall, some bronze paint and a verse... "Love the Lord your God with all your Heart, with all your Soul and all your Strength."

I struggled with how to get this verse placed on the wall exactly where it needed to be to make it be somewhat centered. I printed out the verse and measured it. I found out that the exact center of that verse is the word "Heart". I began drawing the letters at the center.

I measured.

I marked.

I began with "Heart".

I spent hours in the quiet of the sanctuary, scrawling out the words to the verse, as straight and as perfectly as I could. I penciled the word at the center of it all:"heart", I penciled "soul" and I penciled"strength".

I felt ministered to as I recited the words over and over and over...each pencil mark, each stroke of the brush, over and over and over I said, "Heart", "Soul" and "Strength" and "Love the Lord your God".

After the words were sufficiently written, came the task of erasing mistakes. I kept thinking of how these actions were so representative of our lives and the workings of our church.

We have "Heart"....don't we?

We have Soul and Strength and...Love....don't we?

Last night and today, in the quiet of the sanctuary, scrawling, climbing up and down the ladder, drawing, painting, reciting....I am questioning...

Do we really DO those things God has asked us to do?

There are mistakes. There have been mistakes. Trying as hard as I could, I was unable to erase my mistakes. I erased and erased, but those mistakes still were there. I got out the soap and water and scrubbed....still not clean. I had to get out the original wall color and paint over the mistakes.....several coats sometimes to get them to go away, but I know, deep down under the layers, the mistakes remain.

I also had the opportunity, in the quiet of the sanctuary, to listen, to feel pain and sorrow and loss and grief and disappointment. What part did I play in this? Did I cause pain? Did you?

"Love the Lord your God with all your Heart, with all your Soul and with all your Strength."

"Whatever you have done unto the least of these...you have done unto Me".

Have you shown that love, have you shown that "HEART" that God has asked of you?

He showed me today in the quiet of the sanctuary...."HEART" is at the center of it all. We all make mistakes. Sometimes those mistakes can not be taken away. Sometimes the hurt can not be erased. It takes His cleansing blood to wash us clean. I am praying that He will.