The Heart Breathes

The heart breathes grief and joy in the same breath. To hold our breath spiritually means we cease to be. Our mind takes over and we function but we do not live. We live by happiness or saddness but we do not know life. We see others enjoying life but we do not recognize it or know its source. For most of us, we hate grief. Yet it is our introduction into the air of heaven - joy. Only a heart that has known and experience and expressed grief can truly embrace joy. People joy choke because they have not been prepared by the grief of life and living. If you love with your heart, you are going to know grief.

Breathe. Love. Live. Grieve and you will know joy.

God promises to those who grieve great joy that overwhelmes and overtakes the grief. Psalm 126.

The Gift of Grief

When a parent does fulfill the Heart Longings that God breathed in us we experience a breath of grief. If we have a safe place to spiritual breathe, we exhale the breath through grieving however is appropriate for our age. However, if we do not have a safe place to express our grief we swallow the grief. Like manna in the Old Testament, it begins to go bad on us. Left for a season it produces anger, then bitterness and then erupts into rage. We have to use a lot of emotional energy to keep the grief down in our souls, locked away. This exahaustion can lead to depression and mental health issues. It is neccesary to release the grief breath. It will hurt just to release the breath almost as much as if it just happened. This is why most of don't want to deal with our past issues. BUT if we don't then our heart is not available for us to love and we live life by our mind and emotions - an extremely exhausting life. God gave the grief as a gift and in expressing the grief He promises that He will exchange the grief for joy. Not happiness but a sense of peace that goes beyond the mind's ability to grasp.