#spreadhislove

Growing up, I always wanted to be a heart doctor. A Pediatric Cardiologist to be exact. You see, my little brother had a heart condition. He was born with a hole in his heart. Contrary to disbelief, many of us are born with this hole in our hearts aren’t we? In his case, it was very real. At around the age of two, my parents were told he was going to need a heart operation to repair that hole in his heart. He was only a baby, things like that don’t happen to good people. What if he doesn’t’ make it? I can’t imagine what my parents must have thought. What was going through their heads at that time, I was just a kid. 

As you know, I never got to be a heart doctor. I took a medical course in my junior year of high school and for whatever reason; I decided not to pursue medicine. Just like that, I made up my mind. It’s funny how we can make up our minds so quickly on some things but not others. This was something I grew up believing my whole life, “I’m going to be a doctor, I’m going to be a doctor,” then all of a sudden… it wasn’t an option for me. Maybe it was the teacher, maybe it was all the work we had to do, or just maybe…. My heart wasn’t in it.

How do you repair a hole in the heart? A hole in the heart is present at birth. In many cases, most cases in fact, a child’s heart will mend on its own. Many people are born with small even medium sized holes in the heart that are never even diagnosed. The body generally takes care of it on its own. That’s pretty amazing! In more severe cases though, open heart surgery must be performed. This was the case for my brother. Doctors made an incision on his chest, and went into his heart and did the only thing that they were capable of doing in the 90’s, they put a patch over the hole on the inside wall of his heart. Why? …To keep the oxygen-poor blood of his body from mingling with the oxygen-rich blood of his lungs.

Doctors say many things; they give you the MEDICAL answers to your questions. And according to what medicine says, my brother would always be physically slower at most things than other people, may not have the energy that other kids his age would have, may never play sports and a couple other things. But God always has other plans. In Jeremiah 17:9, God says “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” Only He can… the one who created it. My brother played soccer at the age of 4, and has played ever since. He’s always been a super-fast runner and always one of the best of his teams and besides being a little hard headed, he is a healthy, happy 23 year old, young man.

((I pray the Lord now opens the eyes of his heart))

Now, several years later, God speaks to me one day and begins throwing words out there. I’m no doctor, we’ve already established that, but I did a little research on a few things and wanted to share what I found with you.

Our hearts are cone-shaped. The point of that cone is called the APEX. The APEX OF THE HEART IS THE LOWEST SUPERFICIAL PART OF THE HEART. It is where the paths of fiber split in opposite directions, going either to the left or to the right.

You see, THIS is where most people keep Jesus, in the lowest part of their hearts. This is ALSO where we make the decision to follow Christ. Do we go left or do we go right? God tells us in Ecclesiastes 10:2 “The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left.”  God separates the wise from the foolish. The exact direction is irrelevant; we must go in the direction of the Lord.

Your heart is a hollow pump; it keeps the blood flowing in your veins from the time you are born up until the time you die. We cannot survive without it, we cannot have life.  In the same way we cannot survive without Jesus. In John 14:6, He tells us “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” Jesus is at the heart of who we are and what we do. He is essential for our survival and for our salvation.

The word APEX also has another meaning; it means peak. It is the top and highest point of something. It’s amazing that we have to search the APEX of our hearts in order to reach the APEX of our lives.

The doctors, and I’m sure God had a major hand in it, fixed my brother’s heart. But I tell you, Christ is truly the only one who can heal it. He can renew you and make you whole again. If you have not found Jesus, you haven’t searched your heart deep enough.

 ♥,

M.E.