Dear God,

My heart is a mess.

There’s just more suffering and loss and fear in the world than it can hold right now. Help me not let in so much news that I have to put the “closed” sign up in the door of my heart, because my family and friends need it to stay open.

Sometimes my heart doesn’t really trust love.
When my heart is full, help the anxious thoughts and feelings that poke a hole and empty it again come more slowly (or preferably not at all).
Sometimes the old girl does unhelpful things to protect herself.

When my heart is broken, help it not also create an emotional auto-immune disorder – attacking as pathogen what is actually harmless.

But sometimes, sometimes I’m surprised by my heart.
It can be more deeply in love than I ever knew possible.
It can increasingly be gladdened by simple things I used to ignore.
It can hurt for people I don’t even like very much.
It can heal from things I used to think would destroy it.
It can long for you, God. But in ways that look less like piety and more like friendship.

It’s confusing, having a human heart.
So help me remember that while my heart may break, expand, hurt, heal, close, open and overflow – none of that affects my soul.

None of it can get to the part of me which bears your image; the part of me that contains the divine, inextinguishable spark. And for that I am thankful. Because, as stated earlier, my heart is a mess.

-from Nadia Bolz-Weber Substack

Your child,

Jill