In the heart of a great storm
Guard your heart. Out of it flows the issues of life, we're told. Your heart is described as the center of your being. It's your core, your essence. With all of it, we are supposed to love the Lord our God.
My heart had drifted from my ex-wife many years ago. It's safe to say I loved her, but she did everything she could to defeat that love. To protect myself and my heart, I started to float free. Eventually, I imagined life without her. Those imaginings turned into pleadings and a desperate need to leave, which I eventually did.
When I met a certain woman, it was, as we called it, "a slippery slope." We fell headlong into each other, and it was ridiculously good. Until it wasn't. We were both married, me deeply unhappily so. I cannot say how she felt about her husband at the time, but I do know she loved him much more than I loved my wife, and much more than any man could ever expect to be loved.
Our relationship ended before we ended our marriages. Somewhere in there, she told me "this is why you guard your heart." I understood her point, of course, and her words have haunted me ever since. I was always so careful about other women. I was like a brick wall to them, the most boring of brick walls, made of stupidity and, well, brick. I did all of this to protect my relationship with my wife, my marriage, her heart, our future.
If the right and wrong of something were determined solely by the outcome of a situation, then I would have to say it was wrong of me to leave my heart unguarded. And, I take full responsibility for ensnaring another human being with me in this folly. If I could, I'd take it back. Only for her sake. For my sake, I wouldn't, Not in a million years. I deeply regret the confusion and pain I've caused this woman and her family. If God will allow me, I will personally tend to their wounds. I'll pray for them as long as I live. I'll stay away if He tells me to; I'll never speak a word to them if He desires. However God would have me repair the broken hedge, I will do it.
As for my heart, losing the woman I loved was the worst thing I'd ever been through. If my heart had been whole and strong, it may have been a different story. But, I went into it with a heart that had been to war and back a thousand times. It was the most tired of hearts, a broken heart that was somehow still able to function. If it was a horse, it would have been put down. If it was a beloved pet, someone would have put it out of its misery. If it was your father or mother, you may have even done the same. But, I loved her. Oh, did I love her. I loved her in spite of my heart. Whatever was left of it, I willed it to love her. And it did. She was my resting place in the heart of a great storm.
No, I wouldn't take a minute of it back, not for my sake. She did more good than any amount of harm. And what she hurt will heal. She let me run past the gates of her heart; she let me probe her beautiful mind, touch her quiet places with my noise, let me live there for a brief moment, let me imagine myself there forever. No, I don't want to take any of it back, just the hurt from her eyes, just the pain from her life, the mess I've put her in. If my prayers could smooth away the ripples of pain in her heart, I'd have no worries. If my tears could have cleansed us all and made us whole again, I'd have it covered. If I could cash in the rest of my life and give them theirs back, you bet I would. In a brokenhearted heartbeat.
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