We All Need a New Heart

I have a wise friend who launched a private Facebook page called “Heart Munchies” a few years ago.  Anne Marie described it as a light, playful invitation to enter a world that is rich in meaning, where wonder, adventure, and fun are treasured values.  Heart Munchies, she says, are “food for your heart, essential nutrients for living a heart-centered life,” compelling you to:

• Live in possibility
• Be driven by passion and purpose
• Continuously expand with personal growth
• Be obedient to the callings of your heart
• Make your heart your best friend

What a brilliant idea to offer people a forum to expand into a brighter, more joyful experience of life.

First cousin to sharing “heart munchies” is our personal mentor’s commitment to daily “gratitudes” —compiling things to be grateful for instead of compiling complaints, focusing on what is great about my life instead of what is not so great. This is heart food that is especially rich in nutrients.

So what feeds my heart these days?  What makes my heart swell with gratitude and wonder?

• Any thought of George Weisenthaler, the surgeon who pulled my husband Lee back from the edge during a preliminary surgery to install a battery-driven turbine in his failing heart so that he could wait for his new heart
• Listening to Lee breathing smoothly and easily during the night, his strong young heart never missing a beat
• The amazing friends who — with great generosity of spirit — stepped in to keep our business humming while we concentrated on building Lee’s strength
• Sharing an alternative to conventional employment and watching the faces of men and women bloom as hope and possibility replace resignation and disillusionment
• The great outpouring of love and prayers that continue to rain down in our lives
• Insightful friends who lift us up and carry us forward when the slope is steep
• Expansive vistas and the profound silence of great natural beauty
• Lee’s renewed and expansive purpose — because, as the song goes, he’s had the chance to live like he was dying.

“Live Like You’re Dying” is the name of a country song performed by Tim McGraw. It’s about what a man did when he was given the prognosis of only months to live.   The salient parts of the song go like this:

“I loved deeper, and I spoke sweeter,
And I gave forgiveness I’d been denying…
I was finally the husband that most of the time I wasn’t
And I became a friend a friend would like to have.
And I took a good long hard look at what I’d do
If I could do it all again.

I hope you get the chance to live like you were dying,
Like tomorrow was a gift and you’ve got eternity
To think about what could you do with it,
What can I do with it,
What would I do with it?”

When my life telescopes down to a minute-by-minute awareness of the value of THIS moment, I have a new heart.  When today is a gift, I am living a heart-centered life driven by passion and purpose, by compassion and gratitude.  Life becomes an adventure, and possibilities swing into view that were previously pushed aside by fear and complacency.

We all have limited time here.  We all have the chance “to live like we’re dying.”   We all have a chance at living our lives with a new heart.

A wise man once told me that there are two ways to live my life; One is as if there are no miracles. The other is as if everything is a miracle.

Feel the wonder.

EVERYTHING is a miracle.