A New Heart Regimen

Life had ripped open my chest and callouses of anger, pain and resentment had formed over my heart; callouses that tried to suffocate all love from my beating heart, the genesis of heart disease. I couldn’t let that happen. After wasting away in a sedentary, semi-comatose bed of emotional numbness,  I needed a regimen that would nurse my heart back to health.

Despite my pain, I began to exercise love towards others, and especially to myself. It was tough, and on most days, I didn’t feel like it. After months of pain, my heart was badly out of shape. The friction between love and anger caused delayed onset heart soreness, but I kept fighting through the pain and praying for strength, just enough for the day.

I adopted a diet of spiritually-nourishing food and reduced the amount of junk I consumed. My spiritual food had to be fresh each day. As I discovered, yesterday’s food only took care of yesterday’s pain.

Many times I had to detox with tears – quite regularly, actually. Some said it wasn’t healthy to detox that often, but there were a lot of toxins I needed to rid my body of. Each tear drop relieved me of an ounce of weight that would have threatened to overpower my heart and cause cardiac arrest. So I did it more often than recommended as I held on to the promise that, “[Love] always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres”(1 Corinthians 13:7). Over time, smiling became easier, my heart strengthened, and I realized that love is life.

Soon the weight of pain, guilt and shame began to melt off. And in their stead was a healthy heart overflowing with forgiveness and love. Now I have beauty for ashes. It was hard work but it paid off.  My heart is beating vibrantly again and doing what it was created to do – overflow with love. And I have to say, I love the way my new heart looks on me.