When I was a little girl I wanted to be an actress, a designer or a singer. In essence, I wanted to be noticed for doing something beautiful.
When we read where God promises to give us the desires of our heart, I think we first believe one of two things; either that God isn’t talking to us or we think we can access His throne of Grace with all of our wishes as if He were our personal Genie.
And then it happens. Spiritual maturity. That moment when we realize God is not like other humans who may have let us down. God is faithful with His promises. And, He truly wants to give us ‘our hearts desire’ but as the fickle, growing Christians we are, He will make sure our hearts are in the right place first.
Oh there are times when He may even let us have what we wish for – knowing that we will learn from our mistakes until our hearts are seeking the right things.
In my youth, I was fighting for my independence and ignorantly behaving as my ancestor Eve when her heart desired the wrong thing over God’s best for her.
As I struggled to know my purpose, as I strove for the wind… I finally realized everything in God’s word was actually true - His yoke IS easy and His burden light. It was when I took on life in my own strength and wisdom that I came up short or with many hardships.
As I got in the yoke with Jesus, things became much easier. I not only trusted Him with my head (because I knew I was supposed to) but I trusted Him with my heart (because I had seen Him in action in my life). He is my hero, my rescuer, my saving Grace … and it became easy to trust.
And when I trusted Him with my life (having messed up so many times doing things my way) my heart finally desired what He desired for me. Because I learned that what He wanted for my life was His best!
How freeing! How liberating! And that is all it took?? For me to finally really trust Him? To know that even if I didn’t see the answers, I could trust that He was busy working things for my good? Yes!
And so, it is with that life lesson that I was brought to ‘my heart’s desire’ in so many instances.
When I think back to all of the things I thought were my heart’s desire … Sometimes I think, “How could I have ever wanted THAT?” But then I realized that there was a purpose for everything.
Even when I was striving or confused or wandering from the path He had for me … God used these places in my life, these people who crossed my path, and every instance of my life for the good. If not for me – for another, but something good was always revealed to me in whatever happened along my journey.
So what do I want to do today? The acting bug went away after high school. I did sing locally in Chattanooga, but nothing that took me into a career. I sang in my church choir, ensembles and then for the prison ministry, for weddings, revivals around town and I sang the Star Spangled Banner at a few events, but eventually being in the spotlight was no longer my heart’s desire.
During a major life change in my forties, I had gone through emotional healing that took me back to the dreams I once had as a little girl, but not acting or singing… I loved writing and I loved horses. I loved pictures. I loved art. I loved nature. But I didn’t really know it or at least I didn’t know how much.
Those things got lost when life happened as my parents divorced, I attended different schools relocating, and my self-esteem dwindled.
Years later there I was … that little girl inside was healed and I was back to ‘I can be anything I want to be’. I left the corporate work which paid more, and I went back to basics. You know… when your job is something you actually enjoy.
I loved fitness and the gym scene so I worked part time and taught senior fitness. I put myself around horses and took care of a very special horse that I bonded with. When I took off for New York in 2011, it was just to see what I could see. To dare myself. To be independent. To gain courage. I worked for more money than I had ever made (but that was only because it cost so much to live there). It wasn’t about the money for me.
So when I found the courage to pitch myself as a writer and began writing, God gave me a platform to reach many people and life wasn’t so much about me anymore, it was about people who crossed my path. To make them laugh, to make them smile and reach them with the get-to-the-heart matters they could identify with. That was beautiful to me.
My true heart’s desire was to bring beauty. Beauty in words that took a reader to a certain place or time in their own life. Beauty in a smile. Beauty in touching someone deeply with what I said or did. Beauty in photos I may have taken for articles. Making some feel beautiful.
Before moving from New York, I found beauty in hiking. That was something I wanted to continue when I came back to Chattanooga and I found beauty in Lookout Mountain. Beauty in people I interviewed for articles I wrote. Beauty in horses again.
And then, beauty in the man He had for me.
When I had lived my life trusting, and following God’s path for me, He saw fit to give me my heart’s desire to be a wife to the very man He intended for me all along that I had just not been ready for. Oh, my husband is handsome but his soul is just …beautiful.
Our parents were best friends when we were small. I pinched him when we were babies (maybe that was my way of telling God my heart’s desire back then). When God led us back to each other and I moved to my birthplace in Kentucky, He surrounded me with even more beauty.
The place I live is surrounded simply by farmer’s fields of beans, tobacco or corn. There is an old tobacco barn in the back of our home.
If you drive by this area, you might think it is quite boring. There are no mountains, no views from up high, no rocks and hills … just plain open fields of Kentucky and horse pastures.
But how very beautiful it is to me. Yes, being my hometown makes it special, but living here and watching it day by day is where the beauty lies. The people I have come to know, the seasons, the animals… it is special each and every day. And especially the sunrises and sunsets.
There are places … historical places that bring beauty. The courthouse that holds my husband’s and my birth certificates and …our marriage license. The Land Between the Lakes - or as we call it, “LBL” is rich with beauty. There are bridges, there are buffalo, wildlife of all sorts. There is beauty even in the way the corn grows.
In fact, my church’s motto is “Growing down, up and out” – the way that corn does. My preacher is a farmer so he knows this first hand.
The first year I moved back here, I found myself missing the beauty of Lookout Mountain. So I opened my eyes. I opened my eyes to my surroundings.
The way the corn grew. I saw the green stalks shooting up. After a while, the rustic red roots began to come up out of the ground holding the light green stalks up as if to say “Tah-dah!”
But it wasn’t finished yet. The corn hadn’t even sprouted fully. When I walked our Greyhounds, I
would walk close to the corn and look for the sprouts. The next phase I saw the sprouts that stayed close to the stalk and you could barely see that they were there. Then the stalks turned darker green and the tops had tassels sticking up as if that were its crowning glory!
The corn then spread outward and you could see the ears beckoning to hear what was going on in the world! No, not the world of Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton. Not the Kardashians. The world that is before our eyes… if you look closely.
I think that is why I love hiking. It takes the clutter away. I have hiked the back country roads around me and walked the greyhounds up and down and around the corn fields. And I have witnessed the beauty of the beginning of the day and the end of the day.
There is rarely a sunrise I miss. There is rarely a sunset I miss. Mostly, I have my cell phone on me and I capture the best photo I can of the beauty I see in the sky, but it never seems to capture the fullness of God’s beauty in front of me. His gift. My heart’s desire.
Sometimes I have my Canon Rebel ready and I get many beautiful, finer shots. And that old tobacco barn out back? It has become a very scenic focal point in the beauty I attempt to digitally capture. Along with a few trees full of personality (and with the greyhounds, my Maltipoo puppy and my horses).
We have a horse ranch a mile up the road from our farm and between the two places, I capture many sunrises, sunsets and beautiful scenery. Life is just beautiful.
Yes, sometimes I step out of the picturesque scenes and look at the not so beautiful of this world, but I choose the beauty.
It doesn’t have to be the spectacular beauty of the Greek Isle or Wyoming prairies or Colorado Rockies… or even Lookout Mountain. Beauty is in our heart’s desire.
Some of us take longer than others to learn just what our heart’s desire actually is. And, sometimes we fool ourselves thinking we know what it is. But when we finally have our hearts right there - where God wants us, and we open our eyes and see the beauty right in front of us, life itself is just beautiful.
There is beauty in our jobs, in our families, in our friends and the people we meet. In the birds that wake us with song, the deer that crosses through the bean fields, the horse running in a wide open pasture… and if you live in the city, or work night shift or if you travel on the road for business… open your eyes, because it’s there too.
When a nurse takes vital signs, takes out a catheter without any pain and the patient smiles at her … there is your beauty. When a police officer pulls over a teenager and her voice is shaking in fear and he lets her go with a warning and she sighs with relief with a smile– there’s your beauty. When a pastor is preaching a sermon and an infant cries out interrupting for a moment … there’s your beauty.
Maybe life doesn’t seem very beautiful right now for some of you. I understand – I have been there. We can’t control our circumstances, but we can control our attitude towards them. It does get better, but you have to open your eyes to what is beautiful right now. Seek His beauty.
The time I was living alone in my apartment at the foot of Lookout Mountain with noisy neighbors above me – there was beauty. I would write about these things in my past articles.
Sitting on my balcony as the sounds of the city crowd me and having a butterfly come up and kiss my cheek. Beauty.
Driving downtown, late for church and sitting at a stop light - a hawk flies toward me and through my windshield we make eye contact for just a moment before he flies overhead. Magnificent! Beauty.
My life has never been perfect. I have written openly over the years of the ups and downs I have gone through - my hurts, growth spurts … all of it. But I have opened my eyes and I have seen the beauty and I love sharing it!
And that is my heart’s desire.
YouTube video of sunrises and sunsets at the farm and the ranch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpXmbhkHHEE
jen@jenjeffrey.com