dailydatewithgod

I remember learning about the description of animals as being cold-blooded or warm-blooded as a kid.  I would literally imagine that reptiles had cold blood running through their veins. I remember the description, probably from a movie, of a person who was cold-hearted versus a compassionate person that was labeled warm-hearted.  I didn’t create the same visual of a cold heart in my mind.  Instead I pictured someone who’s heart was enclosed in a dungeon of iron with ice walls.  As I grew in recovery I sensed the ice melting from around my heart and the iron casing softening.  I have had very vivid experiences of God rushing warmth of love through my heart.  What I realize now is that no lack of experience of love in my life could ever void me of warmth completely.  The true warmth of heart is the flame of love that God placed within me to spark my life.  Sometimes the flame has all but gone out but there is always a flicker of warmth because God still is.  This is comforting when I feel distant from my heart, when I want to shut it off, or protect it from what I perceive as unsafe or harmful.  It is in those moments that God gently takes my hand, brings it to my heart and encourages me to breathe into it.  I see now that taking a deep breath, gives energy to the flicker of a flame that is God’s presence in me.  Instead of shutting down and turning cold, God is ready to stand behind me and with me to fan the flame, bringing renewed warmth to my heart through my breath.

My prayer for us is the willingness to try a breath into our hearts to create more warmth at the very moment we want to let the cold reality of life blow out the flame and know that God is present in the inner warmth of the flame that will never go out.