My heart is yours, again.

Open my eyes, that I may see. Psalm 119:18

As he was returning to the city in the early morning, he felt hungry. Seeing a fig tree by the road, he went up to it and found nothing on it but leaves. And he said to it ‘May you never bear fruit again,’ and instantly the fig tree withered. The disciples were amazed when they saw it and said, ‘How is it that the fig tree withered instantly?’ Jesus answered, ‘In truth I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt at all, not only will you do what I have done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, “Be pulled up and thrown into the sea,” it will be done. And if you have faith, everything you ask for in prayer, you will receive.’ Matthew 21:18-22

O God, who of Thy love and pity didst send us Jesus Christ for the illumination of our darkness, give me wisdom to profit by the words He spoke and grace to follow in the steps He trod.

Jesus Christ said, Where ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any.

            O God, give me grace now so to do.

Jesus Christ said, Judge not.

            O God, give me grace this day first to cast out the beam out of my own eye, before I regard the mote that is in my brother’s eye.

For Thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen. –John Baillie

And I sat here in the quiet long and hard this morning, staring at the Word of the day: And if you have faith, everything you ask for in prayer, you will receive.

And I was reminded of Solomon, to whom God appeared in a dream, and said, Ask for anything you want, and it will be given you.

Jesus very clearly says, Anything, as did His Father before Him.

And my mind wandered around the proverbial candy store, examining all of the brightly coloured jars and bins. Like yesterday, when one of the kiddos raised her hand and asked, Miss, if you weren’t teaching us, and you could do anything in the world, what would you do?

And I was reminded of Marco’s question, Why are you making this pilgrimage?

And I was reminded of the answer I whispered as I sat in the meadow under the trees and blue skies of Assisi this summer. The answer that is now imbedded in my screensaver: And what do you desire? Christ asks. “Lord, I desire your Heart.” Christ then reached into the depths and, removing her heart, replaced it with His own, at the same time hiding her heart within His breast.

John Baillie has a long list of details of what this heart, in grace, does, since we act out of our heart, the wellspring of life. Just as water reflects the face, so the heart reflects the person.

And once again, I know that my desire, my one request, is to live free and easy under His light burden. Heaping and overflowing, poured out into my lap.

Nothing else.

Most highest, glorious God

Cast Your light into the darkness of my heart

Give me right faith, firm hope, perfect charity, and profound humility

With wisdom and perception

O Lord, so that I may do what is truly your holy will. –St. Francis, The Cross of San Damiano

It will be done.

And because Thursday is my Everette day, CityPsalms was already cranking away as I drove back and forth up and down Broadway because E always wants to listen to Uncle Cameron. And we both are really loud and pound on our chests when we sing the chorus My Heart is Yours to “Let Your Kingdom Come in my own Heart First.”

And last night we took out all of Nicole’s crèches and set them up all over the house and put bits of turtle food in front of them to eat since it didn't work to try and make houses out of the little crumbly sticks and all the spice cans came down off the shelves for walls and the Tupperware lids were roofs and the sheep kept running away and hiding and the angels carried the shepherds on their backs to look for them and then Mary invited everyone inside for a big sleepover, even the three visitors from far, far away. And then we read Grandma’s Christmas story over and over and over again by the brightness of twinkly lights on the rosemary bush.

Jesus Christ, the illumination of our darkness, May Your Kingdom Come in my own Heart first.

My heart is yours.