Dearly Beloved | Vol. 04
Dear Beloved,
February was a month of broken hearts. Literally.
A beloved family member—someone who has been a tremendous support to this work—had open-heart surgery the day before Valentine’s Day. As I began to understand the dizzying complexities surrounding the operation, all the what-ifs left a circle of us breathless—our own hearts split open as we waited for hers to restart and beat with us again.
In those waiting hours, I found myself placing a hand over my chest, bearing witness to the steady miracle beneath it. Beat after beat. A sort of measurement of time.
A week later, yet another family member received news that their heart scan warranted a follow-up appointment with the doctor. More questions. More heart ache.
All of this against a backdrop of pink paper chains and red cut-out hearts. As you can imagine, the decorations of February hit different this year.
And it has me thinking—
As my own heart beats like the ticking of a steady clock: We aren’t guaranteed another day. Another minute. Another beat.
My heart is prone to wander and worry and I feel like time is slipping through my hands. This is when I desperately need to rehearse His faithfulness:
God holds all things together. (Colossians 1:17)
He commands hearts to beat and lungs to breathe. (Acts 17:25)
Our very lives are miraculous occurrences in the span of eternity. (Psalm 139:13–14)
Our days are numbered; we are but a vapor. (James 4:14)
Turns out, time was never in my hands but is and always will be in His. Big exhale.
For my thirty-third birthday (born in the snowy days of winter), I asked for a watch with a prayer engraved on the back. In Jake’s beautiful script, he wrote, “Teach me to number my days" and every morning when I secure the gold clasp on my wrist, I finish the verse, praying aloud, "so that I may gain a heart of wisdom.” (Psalm 90:12)
I'm looking at its shining face now as it reads the time (the baby is crying and I have to move on from writing), resting over my pulse, both of them keeping beat with one another.
In the wake of this heart-wrenching month and these fleeting days, I'm asking myself these questions every day:
Am I quietly entrusting my heart to God each day? (Proverbs 3:5, Psalm 62:8)
What would it look like to live with a surrendered and open heart to Him? (James 4:7, Galatians 2:20)
Am I a woman who continually who seeks after His heart? (1 Samuel 13:14, Acts 13:22)
Beloved, you can trust your heart with God even, and especially, when our hearts are split open by the pain and unknowns this side of heaven. You are chosen and cherished. You are formed with intention and carried moment by moment. And even as He shapes your heart more and more into His likeness, rest secure in this unchanging truth: you belong to Him. He holds all time and he holds your very heart. He is steady. He is near. He never skips a beat.
With you in Belovedness,
Hannah
