If you are angry, I will soothe your heart. If you are sad, I will wipe your tears. If you are lost, I will light your path. I long to see you giggling, laughing, and smiling in the warm sun like we used to do. If you are tired, let me be your rest and if you are anxious let me be the calm in your storm. This world will not fulfill – it will only take more. Come and sit with me a while and I will share with you the secrets you long to know.

It breaks my heart to see you turn to the empty and hopeless things that cannot heal your broken heart. I long for the day that you trust my hand to comfort you once again. Come home wayward child! Let me show you that my love fulfills and that there is nothing you can do to change my heart towards you. I will always love you, even if you don’t return to me.

Come home wayward child! The things you play with are only going to hurt you. I long to have you in my arms again, resting in my protection. When did your heart begin to harden towards my love? What angers you about my want to love you? My heart has not changed… Will you surrender to me once again? Please come home…

I will never forget that night so many years ago; I was sitting at my sister’s home and the Maker of All Things met me there in her living room. Everyone had gone to bed and I was left sitting there with my own thoughts and my own struggles. I had been wrestling with brokenness, pain, and sorrow. I had headed off into sin, yet again. I was struggling in a relationship I knew was not good for me and I was absolutely angry at God for all things.

So, in the midst of my pain and rage at God, I heard a gently whisper. While I was yelling and angry, asking Him to change me, make me respond differently, or just plain STOP me – He spoke softly and gently to my heart. “My dear son, I will change you and I will heal your heart, but you have to be willing to choose to take a different path and do the hard work that is ahead.”

You see friends, He is our only hope for healing and deliverance. But just as He spoke to the lame man by the Pool of Bethesda, asking him, “Do you want to be healed?” (John 5:1-15) He will ask us the same question. “Oh yes, a thousand times yes!” I had cried out to Him over the years, but then was not willing to choose a different path – not willing to do the work of freedom! The lame man by the Pool of Bethesda had to truly leave behind those things that had become comfortable in his condition. To do the work of taking up his mat and placing the weight of his body on his formerly useless legs. He was afraid and unsure if he truly could be healed – if Jesus could truly change his condition. What would this mean for him? How would his life change?

That is the small step of faith that Christ asks of all of us. This night, my heart was finally able to meet His… then true change began. I took up my mat, and started putting one foot in front of the other!