After My Heart

You are after my heart.

Not just a piece broken off and offered as an afterthought. Not just the parts that are visible and I am willing to provide. Not just the happy beats, the skips that sing in the morning light. Not just the soft spots in the ripest season, the top half that skims the surface, or the vibrant visitations I allow when the time is right for me.

You demand more.

You are purposeful in Your pursuit. You break through the barriers and will never settle for satisfactory.

You want the whole of me. The raw, deep, scratched secrets stashed beneath the innermost hideouts in my heart. You want every taste of my terror, the fear that folds at my corners. You want the cold, stubborn stumps of my selfish desires that have latched onto my layers and taken root at the base.

The cold river of blood that sticks to my nucleus, too stubborn to rush through and flood me with warmth- You want to dive headfirst into the stream and pull away the clotting debris one by one until Your strength surges through me and I fill with Your passion.

My heart may rip to shreds. When it does, You are a one Man search party that scours every square inch of my memory, my experiences, my downcast thoughts that have left slices of fabric scattered in the tightest spaces of my frail confidence. And when they are all collected and You lay them out before Your light, You assemble them, weave them back together and create a dazzling display of Your determination in the fine print of the pattern.

With a whirlwind of fury, You course across the plains of my palpitations and throw my false lovers out of our atmosphere; for You declare that You will not share me with another. You burrow beneath my burdens, scoop them up and dispose of these atrocities I blended with my soul. With direct yet delicate hands, You swipe away the pooled tears my eyes store when sadness settles upon me. They drain and are replaced with a garden of gladness. I am wiped clean, pure, wrapped in a soft settling that comes after the storm.

And after You clean my core, Your eyes roam its rooms, inspecting each crevice with care. You have hammered in Your handiwork, built from scratch and with Your initials carved gently into the walls of the home You’ve constructed; Your imprint so those who dare try to tear me down know Who holds me up.

Your love is relentless. It is forever and unyielding. Though I have damaged and dirtied the depths of my splattered soul, Your promise of affection and pleas for me to turn myself over to You releases my clutching hands that hide all that shamed me, as I never understood how my life, too, desired to draw itself devotedly to You until the moment I saw Your own heart poured out for me one deep, crimson drenched day as You fell silent.