GROWING SEEDS: "Guard Your Heart"

"Guard your heart above all else,

for it determines the course of your life."

Proverbs 4:23

There's a story I heard this past week that you NEED to hear.  We all NEED to hear…..truly HEAR this story.  A story told by Max Lucado.

It was about a young girl named Taylor Storch who, with her family, had headed to Colorado for a little skiing.  This 13 year old laughed all the way up and down the mountain until one sudden moment, she fell - crashed - down a straight rocky slant of the mountain.  By nightfall, she was gone from this earth and Home with her Father….and her parents, Tara and Todd, were signing papers giving away Taylor's still-warm heart.

Max said they ended up giving Taylor's heart to a 38-year old woman in Arizona whose heart was failing so much that she couldn't get off the couch anymore - Patricia Winters was her name.  

Taylor's mama had only one request.  She called Patricia Winters and asked her if she could come "hear" her heart.  So Taylor's mama flew from Dallas to Phoenix and knocked on Patricia Winters' door and Patricia Winters walked right past the very couch she had been confined to for so long, opened the door…..and her arms…..to Taylor's mama.  Taylor's heart beating right there next to her crying Mama's.

And then Patricia Winters reached over and handed Taylor's mama a stethoscope.  And there it was; clear as a bell; 

Thrum…Thrum….Thrum.  

Taylor's mama could hear it loud and long, right there in her ears…..her daughter's still-beating heart.

And then Max had asked slow and quiet. “What was Taylor’s Mama really hearing?”

“It indwells in a different body, but that heart is the heart of her girl…. ” Max said.  “And when God hears your heart, that’s what He hears — the still-beating heart of His Son.”

As we start a fresh new year, I pray I never forget that the heart that beats in my chest cavity…..that gives me life….that breaks when someone wrongs me….that speeds up when I'm excited and slows down when I sleep….is none other than Jesus' heart inside of me.  

I pray I never forget that.

P.S.  Two days after I wrote this article for the bulletin, the recipient of Taylor's heart passed away.  This heart that had lived so fully in both Taylor and in Patricia Winters', suddenly stopped beating.  What a strong reminder that we are just a heartbeat away from eternity.