I have an enlarged heart

I Have An Enlarged Heart

A few years ago that is exactly what a doctor told me. I had been experiencing some challenges in the running part of my triathlon training. My heart rate would quickly jump in the 160 beats per minutes range and it was difficult for me to maintain a steady running pace without mixing in some walking to bring my heart rate down. Heart disease is a man-trait and definitely a family-trait for me, so I had a series of tests. Eventually the doctor told me I had an enlarged heart, most likely due to my many years of endurance sports.

Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it. The Wisdom Writer of Proverbs, Proverbs 4:23

Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. Alfred Lord Tennyson - English Poet from the 1800’s

The other night I was reminded that my heart had enlarged over the past years in a different way - relationally. I was sitting in my house starting a new Bible Study small group with people from my church. It was a new group, but I knew all the people in my living room. And more than that - as I heard them share some of their stories as an ice-breaker, I remembered how much I cared about each one of them - individually. I actually was feeling love for each one of them as they told their short stories.

Six years ago, I didn't know even one of them. Six years ago I had a broken heart, not an enlarged one. I was leaving a job/ministry that I had been a part of for more than a decade. I loved people there too, but I had to leave and disconnect from them because - well the reasons are not important - they were the same reasons many of us leave jobs. What was more important was the relationships my wife and I were leaving. We were walking away from people that we had let into our hearts, that were a part of our life and living. And as we were leaving, we didn’t even know where we going since I was interviewing at many different churches.

We ended up where we are now. And we love it! And as I sat there that night, I realized my heart had grown bigger because of the change. I had a hard time imagining my life and living without some of these people. The people we left behind are still in my heart too. I think of them often. I see them sometimes since we only moved an hour away from them.

My heart had indeed gotten bigger!

It reminded of what new parents say when they get ready to greet their second child into the world. They have so much love for their first child, how can they possibly love the second as much as they already love the first one. But then the second human emerges and instantly their hearts grow.

Humans have an incredible capacity to enlarge their hearts. I think this is because we bear the image of God, who loves all humans since the beginning of time.

Humans also have an incredible capacity to close off their hearts in an attempt to protect themselves from pain. The quote I used earlier in this blog - the one from the Bible - says to protect our hearts. This has a lot to do with righteousness and godly living. But what if we applied it to relationships? What if we applied it to protecting ourselves from closing our hearts off. The proverb says that the heart is the well-spring of life. Life springs from our hearts - from an enlarging heart - not a shrinking heart. Our heart creates life - new life that we get to live in. A closed heart does the opposite.

Last week my heart was happier and bigger for letting new people in despite the temptation to close it off from new people. Six years ago I was feeling the pain of changing relationships. Notice I said changing relationships. Those relationships didn’t end - they're still with me. They enlarged my heart so I could let even more people in.

Let your heart enlarge. Living life with people is an endurance event, and it is worth it!

#healingfromabrokenheart #brokenhearts #healedhearts #bighearts #braverandstrongertogether #addingvaluetomalefriendships