Search My Heart

Plunk!

Isaiah puts the vase on the dining room table. I look up from my computer and my soul swells.

“Look what we found for you,” he says.

Lonny and the boys had been running errands and this surprise delights me. The vase is a tall cylinder and there are tulips inside. Some petals and still closed in tight buds but some are opening and the color holds the promise of spring. Red-yellow. Colors of warmth and sunshine and good things to come. Logan brought me a similar vase of tulips a couple of years ago, and these speak to my spirit the way those did.

The tulips move my thoughts to spiritual things because these are not cut flowers. The tulips still grow from bulbs. At the bottom of the vase, there’s a small, round platform and the heart of the flowers rest here. Roots reach downward for water.
 
 What is normally covered and protected is on display. The secret place is exposed.

It’s how I want my heart to be before the Lord.

I think of David’s prayer and it seems to me to be most brave.

Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! Psalm 139:23 ESV

Sitting there, I think about how what we present to others is often the up-right stuff. The stuff petals are made of. The good, wholesome, bright, lovely-to-look at things. But deep inside, there are other things. For me, worry. Fear. Anxiety. Places where trust is a struggle and peace wears thin.

Search my heart, O Lord!

I want to invite the Lord to into this that is buried and covered and protected. Into what is hidden from view. Into the center, the pared-back place, the at-the-core place that only He and I know of.

Lord, let your healing light, your love, mercy, strength, grace and glory shine into what’s covered and hidden. I invite you into my deepest place.

“Do you like them, Mama?” Isaiah asks.

I pull him to my lap and run my fingers through his fine, blond hair.

“I love them,” I say. “Thank you.”

I’m grateful for this gift on the table.

The love-offering that prompts a prayer.