My Heart Is Going To Burst

Elizabeth Stone once said "Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body." Once you have a child, your life and your heart, will never be the same. Your heart aches when your children hurt or when they hurt you by being rebellious or defiant. Your heart swells with pride when they accomplish a task they thought was too hard for them. You beam with pride when they make wise decisions and when they show good character through kindness or compassion. 


You are forever linked by heart strings that are never truly severed. You experience joy when your child does and sorrow when their heart is grieved. Your hearts are linked. Maybe this is because for nine months you carried them beneath your heart, but I don't think so. I have a dear friend who has adopted eight children and her heart is tied to theirs as if they had come from her body. I think the love that a mother has for her children goes beyond biological factors. It comes from the love that is in her heart. 


A mother willingly gives her heart to her children knowing full well that it will be tested at times and hurt at others. Oh, but when her children make her proud, she will feel like her heart is going to burst from happiness. What a joy it is to be a mother! There is no feeling on earth like it. 


I am so proud of the children God has entrusted to my care: three from my body and two who will be married into our family. I call them all my own. I am thrilled when they have a personal accomplishment and I share in their joy as if it was my own.  I am thankful that they each love the Lord and want to serve Him, I can ask for no more. I am blessed. Like any proud mama I want to brag on them to anyone who will listen.


God is the same way with us, His children. He loves to brag on us when we have done what is good. In Job 2:3 God is speaking to Satan and says: "Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil. And he still maintains his integrity, though you incited me against him to ruin him without any reason." God was proud of Job. 


In Numbers 12 God says that His servant Moses was 'faithful in all my house'. God is well pleased when we do what is right and He is not behind the door in saying so. But just like our children can sometimes disappoint us and let us down, so can we do the same to God when we refuse to follow His ways and are rebellious and headstrong. We can grieve the heart of God when we sin. 


The Bible tells us in Genesis 6:6 that God was grieved with the sinful people before the flood. It also says in Mark 3:5 that Christ was grieved at the hardness of the peoples' hearts and we know from Ephesians 4:30 that we can grieve the Holy Spirit when we sin.


 I don't want to disappoint my earthly Father and I certainly don't want to disappoint my Heavenly Father. It is my desire to honour Him with everything I do. I want to be a pleasing sight to Him. Proverbs 3:9 tells us to honour God with our first-fruits and I believe this goes beyond just our finances. I think it speaks to every aspect of our lives. We need to give God our best in all things so that He will say 'well done my good and faithful servant'. I want God to feel like His heart is going to burst when He looks on me, His daughter. 


I want to make Him proud!