Here’s what I know about the New Year ….
If your heart is beating, you have a purpose. It doesn’t matter if it’s a broken heart, grieving heart, sad heart, lonely heart, full heart…any kind of heart. If it’s beating, God has a plan for you and a purpose for each and every beat. Friend, your beating heart matters.
This is an ECMO machine that helped my sweet friend’s heart. ECMO stands for extracorporeal membrane oxygenation and is a lifesaving therapy which adds oxygen to the blood and pumps it throughout the patient like a heart normally would. This process takes place outside the body and lets the lungs and heart rest temporarily and have time to heal. I treasure this picture because it is a visual reminder that sometimes our hearts have seasons where they need help to beat. Moments to rest. Time to heal.
You are still here, you are still alive, your beating heart and your every breath still matter. So take on this next year with confidence and grace. Nothing is too broken for God to fix. You may be the one who needs “outside” help for your heart. Or perhaps you are the one God wants to use to give a hurting person time to rest and heal. Allow others to help and help others. Love deeply. Seek Jesus because as the song below says, every beat of your heart is calling out His Name.
I will give them a heart to know Me, for I am the LORD; and they will be My people, and I will be their God, for they will return to Me with their whole heart. Jeremiah 24:7 NASB
And I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit within you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart. Ezekiel36:26 NLT
P.S. Many thanks to my friend Joanna Dennstaedt who originally wrote this wonderful post and allowed me to tweak and expand a little upon it for this blog. Joanna is a 5-year survivor of stage 3 melanoma and founder of the nonprofit ministry Radiant Hope, which offers support/comfort/inspiration to cancer patients (including giving them a free copy of my book 50 Days of Hope!) You can connect with this beautiful lady at https://www.joannadennstaedt.com/?fbclid=IwAR3ISWHRUo0eFf9GQScAqUbWKEaVsRftys41lz3ift_JKAKGdypM1ceqWzc
Be sure to open in your browser to hear the music video “Every Beat” by North Point InsideOut.
