The Heart Revealed

I'm reading Waking the Dead by John Eldridge right now and am very impressed. I have enjoyed other books by Eldridge as well so it shouldn't surprise me, but I'm especially drawn thus far to a chapter about the heart. To quote him:

...the heart is the source of our emotions. But we have equated the heart with emotion, and put it away for a messy and even dangerous guide. No doubt, many people have made a wreck of their lives following an emotion without stopping to consider whether it was a good idea to do so. Neither adultery nor murder is a rational act. But equating the heart with emotion is the same nonsense as saying that love is a feeling. Surely, we know that love is more than feeling loving; for if Christ had followed his emotions, he would not have gone to the cross for us. Like any man would have been, he was afraid; in face, he knew the sins of the world would be laid upon him, and so had even greater cause for hesitation (Mark 14: 32-35). But in the hour of his greatest trial, his love overcame his fear of what loving would cost him.

This idea was a little strange to me at first. If I understand it correctly, Eldridge is saying that the heart is the source of emotions, but that emotions are an offspring of the hearts thoughts. The heart can think...? The author points the reader to several places in the Word which describe such a reality including: I Kings 3:9, Heb 4:12 and Proverbs 23:7. It's still a mystery.

Then, yesterday I was reading the Saturday edition of the Rocky Mountain News, the local Denver paper (which incidentally has more advertisements than news, but that's a different story altogether.) The story was a sort of continuation to larger section they had done a few weeks ago called A Final Salute. It tells the story of US Marine Major Steve Beck whose duty it is to notify the families of fallen soldiers. It is a gripping and incredible special report. I highly encourage you to read it.

Anyway, the follow-up article is about Katherine Cathey whose husband, Marine 2nd. Lt. Jim Cathey, was killed in Iraq when a booby trapped door exploded in his face, basically vaporizing him. Katherine was pregnant when Jim was shipped to Iraq. On the day of her delivery, she was expecting a phone call from Jim asking about the baby, instead, Marine Beck arrived at her door with a folded US flag and a few words explaining his death.

Now, the baby is healthy and without a dad. I could barely make it through the article. I walked over a few feet from the table where I was reading, tears streaming down my face, and picked up my son. I held Asher tight against my chest and somehow he knew to hug me back. I can't explain it - he just knew - our hearts bonded in that moment. After a minute or so, I walked back to the table and attempted to finish the article. Here's what I read next:



For the Marines, transporting the ashes-filled urn was no different from their original mission to bring Jim Cathey's body back to his family from Iraq. An extension of the "never leave a Marine behind" mandate, a Marine was required to escort the urn each step of the way.

At Katherine's request, the Marines called upon 2nd Lt. Marcus Moyer, who trained with Jim Cathey in Quantico, Va.

"I never really looked at it as escorting a box or escorting ashes. I treated it as though he was with me," Moyer said. "I never left it alone."

As crew members on the airplane to Denver discovered the Marine's mission, they asked to shake his hand. One flight attendant wrote him a heartfelt thank- you note on a United Airlines napkin.

"As we were coming into Denver, the pilot came on the loudspeaker and announced that we had a special passenger onboard," Moyer said.

The pilot then read the information about Jim Cathey and requested that passengers remain seated until Moyer left.

"As I was walking forward, people said things. 'Oo-rah,' if they knew I was with the Marines. Or 'Thank you.' Or, 'You're our hero.' Or they would clap . . . Regardless of their feelings about the war, they all seemed very supportive. People would come up and thank me for my service. They would call me a hero."

Moyer paused for a long time, then sniffled.

"Whenever I could do it without crying, I would tell them that . . . that I wasn't the hero, but that I knew a lot of them."

That night, after Moyer met up with Beck, the Marines once again pulled up to Katherine Cathey's home, clad in their formal dress blue uniforms.

"It's another notification," Beck said. "Jim doesn't die all over again, but it's the introduction of more pain. And another whole difficult process we need to go through. And everything starts over.

"In a way, it was like walking up to that porch for the first time."

At this point, I could barely contain myself - I also understood without a doubt, exactly what Eldridge is trying to say. Our heart is "the wellsping of life." The sadness and pain I felt for Katherine and her baby were way beyond emotion and feeling. I was experiencing something much greater within the very depths of my heart itself. I wasn't feeling hurt, I was hurt.

The heart is real.

The Marine motto, semper fidelis, is Latin for ALWAYS FAITHFUL. I can't help but to think of Jesus's fatihfulness to his heart. Thank goodness.