His head feels fuzzy and his knees do knock.

His heart feels light and heavy.

A handle on this life, he thought he had, his heart ensnared by his mind.

Crucify your passions they said.

Crucify them.

Crucify.

For that is where you’ll find Christ they said.

That is Christ.

It’s Christ.

And so he did.

Little did he know that a heart made in the image of God can not be locked in a box, not for long anyhow.

Because as it sits in that box it grows, and it beats, and it refuses its captor because the noises that it makes can not be silenced and must be heard and so it grows and it beats until the shackles that did hold it snap with the sickening screech of metal on metal and now,

The heart is stronger,

And it’s louder than ever.

And so it grows and it beats.

Stronger than logic.

Louder than a metal band.

More ferocious than a mother bear.

But still as light as a beach breeze.

As subtle as a woman dropping hints.

And as gentle as a kiss on your forehead.

And so it grows.

And it beats.

Sometimes he can’t hear it and so sometimes

his steps are out of time

with the beat and he forces rhymes

in order to appear still aligned

with his poem.

But take a step back, and these forced rhymes are but an intermission; wait a while, and soon, in the distance you will hear, unmistakably, a beat.

A beat that resounds in your stomach,

That shatters stained glass windows

That splits open wooden doors adorned with golden crosses.

Repeating again,

And again,

And again.

Growing louder as the beat stakes out the claim of the heart below the cross, building to a crescendo as it leads him to kneel, before the cross. Cushioning his knees. Allowing him to bow in surrender, in a way unimaginable without the beat of that heart.

And so you, let yours grow.

And let yours beat louder.

Because it is in surrender, and not crucifixion, that our God-sculpted hearts grow and beat for Him.

In life, not in death.

So let it grow.

And let it beat.