(This is for all of us who seem to march to our own little drummer. Who think a little differently and sometimes feel like a misfit because of it. Those of us with an “extra thump”. Know that Jesus made you with the rhythm that makes you, you. He knows your beat and He dances to it with you…)
Sometimes she could feel her heart. They called it an irregular heartbeat. An extra thump every so often.
The irregular part seemed right. Off rhythm.
Sometimes she could feel that extra beat in her throat, almost as if she were choking. Like her heart was trying to crawl right out of her body but got stuck in her larynx. Or was it her pharynx?
Sometimes her chest would feel the arrhythmia. A swelling sensation where her body felt too tight for her heart.
Why couldn’t her heart beat like everyone else’s? Why couldn’t it be calm and quiet and predictable? A nice steady rhythm. Why was hers the only one that seemed to need to escape its surroundings?
Not that it was especially dangerous. She’d been told that an extra thump wouldn’t kill her. But she wasn’t so sure.
She went through life with this irregular heartbeat. She lived like everyone else did. At least on the outside. But on the inside she could feel her heart wrestling with her body. Struggling to break free.
After years of practice she learned to live with the inner battle. She kept to quiet activities that wouldn’t aggravate or expose her off rhythm heart. She played it safe. It seemed like the right thing to do.
But instead of making her heart healthier or “more normal”, her heart began to weaken. The extra beat vanished, but in its place was a predictable and yet sluggish rhythm. She no longer felt like herself. In fact, she felt as if life was slipping right out of her.
And then it occurred to her – the irregular rhythm of her heart was her REGULAR rhythm. It was what made her, HER! She needed to live life as she had when she was too young to know the difference. When she didn’t even know that an extra thump wasn’t normal. Instead of comparing her heart to the hearts of others, she needed to work the heart that she had been given, even with its extra beats.
With gusto she celebrated the sometimes “over-drive” heart and let it do its thing. Much to her surprise, she found that with the extra beat she was able to live a little differently, love a little more.
Sometimes she could still feel her heart. Sometimes it was in her throat, sometimes swelling her chest. But now instead of choking her or threatening to make her explode, it left a sensation of fullness and contentment. It was the heart she was born with and the heart she would die with. But it was hers. Extra thumps and all…
Proverbs 4:23 – Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.
1 Samuel 7:16 – The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.
Romans 12:6 – In his grace, God has given us different gifts for doing certain things well.
