Hello all! Feeling inspired today to share with you a fun story out of a super awesome book called, "Beautiful Outlaw" by John Eldridge. If you have yet to read this book, I urge you to check it out. It is THE coolest book ever! It's all about the personality of Jesus and his true, honest and cunningly playful character.
People in my life who have known me forever who I don't have the pleasure of visiting with everyday are probably wondering what's with my sudden lifestyle change over the last year or so. Well, I'll just get right to it, I myself had a very real and life changing experience with Jesus a week before my wedding that changed me forever! Some people might think I'm crazy or choose not to believe me because it's not realistic to have supernatural experiences but I'm here to tell you, it is very real and it truly happens! Don't take my word for it, experience it for yourself and see what I mean ;) That's the best way if you ask me...experience it for yourself! And I guarantee without a shadow of a doubt there are millions of people out there who would back me up on it! Just ask me and I'll tell you how to experience it too!
Back to the story I'd like to share, I just love this because it shows the hilarious-ness that is Jesus ;)
"I was going to call this book Jesus of a Thousand Hearts, because of the ways he continually breaks into my life. He "speaks" to me through hearts. I'll find stones in the shape of hearts in the rivers where I'm fishing. I've seen them almost step by step up a mountainside when on a grueling climb. Praying in the morning I'll look out the window and passing by will be a heart-shaped cloud. Dinner rolls, seashells, stains on my jeans. I've won the lottery when it comes to hearts from Jesus. But I am ashamed to admit that last summer, I grew a little impatient with them. I was going through a trying time and seeking God for the answer to many questions. Often, he would simply give me a heart in reply. I'd be walking down the sidewalk, and there in the cement see a heart-shaped hole, made by a bubble when they poured the sidewalk. I actually grew a little dismissive of them. I didn't want hearts- I wanted answers.
So, Jesus stopped giving these treasures of our friendship.
Last fall, while walking through an alpine meadow bow hunting, I was asking him, How come you don't give me hearts anymore? I asked it in a pouting kind of way. At that moment something gray caught my eye. I looked down midstride, and there in the grass, about as big as a dinner plate, was a dried piece of cow manure-in the perfect shape of a heart.
If I didn't know Jesus adored me, if I didn't know he is playful, and if our relationship didn't allow me to recieve a playful tease, I might have misinterpreted the icon. But I loved it. It was both, Oh, so now you want a heart? and, I adore you still. A cowpie heart. That is so Jesus."
"Let him be himself, friends. He'll come. He'll come."
(Eldridge, 195 & 196)
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