Listen To Your Heart

I was on the phone last evening with one of my best friends. As always, we chatted about non-sensical stuff and, having gotten that out of the way, we moved on the weightier stuff. She was preparing for a follow-up conversation with that important someone in her life and needed to talk. As I listened, I thought about how we often let our brain or the common-sense side of us, outweighed our heart. We lay out plans regarding where our lives should be in five, ten, fifteen years, and fail to take into account those things we can't predict. Most of the time, life ends up happening while we are busy planning for it.

I begin to wonder if perhaps we don't shut ourselves off from really experiencing love because we are too busy planning for when it will happen. We have all these check points that must be crossed off before we will open ourselves up. We need a certain amount of money in the bank. Our career needs to be at a certain definable point. We need just the right sized house and the right cars. And once all of these things have been carefully checked off, then we can allow ourselves to listen to our heart. Have we become so preoccupied with how we think things should be or should look, that we allow the perfect person or perfect love to walk out of our lives simply because they didn't show up when we planned? Are we so busy looking for perfection that we've missed what's right in front of us?

As I lay in bed last night, I thought about the love of God! For God so loved the world that He gave his Son that whoever believed should not perish but have never-ending life. That's my paraphrase of John 3:16. God loved all of us so much that He gave the ultimate sacrifice. Most of the time, we end up running around looking for that perfect love when in fact it is right under our noses. Then when we find it, all too often, we contemplate walking away from it because it doesn't fit into our "time-line." Why are we so willing to give up the perfect love? Why don't we listen to our heart?

Maybe we are afraid of being labeled emotional. Maybe we are afraid of opening ourselves up to love because of past hurt. Whatever the reason, more and more, I'm witnessing people shut themselves off from love because it doesn't fit into their limited plans!! I love the show Dead Like Me (Showtime) which revolves around the lives and responsibilities of grim reapers. Recently Showtime did a marathon of last season and I was able to watch the episodes I had missed. In one episode, the newbie reaper was really struggling with her assignment...reaping the "soul" of a young girl. It was explained to her that the decision to "reap" wasn't hers...it had already been made. Her job was simply to "reap" the soul at the predetermined time. She questioned what happened to the soul if she didn't. The answer gave me a moment of pause. The soul, she was told, withers and dies inside of that person. It becomes ugly, bitter, hateful. It doesn't care how negative it becomes or how much havoc it wreaks in other people's lives. It becomes a lonely, hated existence. Is that what happens to love when we forget to listen to our heart? Do we become less capable of experiencing love because we turn it away?

Plans are good! Plans are wonderful! But when they don't leave any room for our heart to talk to us, then those plans don't do us any good!! It's important to listen to our head!! It's every bit as important to listen to our heart!! Give in to love...even if it doesn't fit into your plans!! You might just find your plans fulfilled in ways you would have never imagined!! Love can do some crazy things!!!

I don't know where you're going and I don't know why, but listen to your heart before you tell him goodbye!

j.