Heart on Fire

Someone asked a question in another group yesterday: “What was one of the hardest things you have ever experienced, and God brought you through it?” I remembered this. It might encourage you.

In 2001, I was going through three horrible things at the same time: separation, bankruptcy, and having to sell my dream home because I couldn’t keep up the payments. My son was just 5.

I was SO MAD AT GOD. I had asked for the divorce because of some bad decisions on my husband’s part. I knew I was right to do it since the situation was untenable, but here I was–the family breadwinner–about to lose everything.

One day I stood in my dining room and yelled at God. Literally yelled. “Yours is the cattle on a thousand hills! What skin is it off Your nose to give me $5000 so I can save the house?!” This is literally what I shouted.

He didn’t answer. Nothing changed. I don’t remember if it was that same day or a few days after, but it wasn’t too long. I was still boiling mad.

This time I was in my bedroom. I sat in the glider chair that my mother-in-law had given me when Alex was born. I sat there and the anger died. I felt utterly empty.

In the silence, Job’s words suddenly resounded in my mind. I slipped off the chair and down on my knees. I said to God, “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.”

And something very, very strange happened. Mind you, I didn’t feel any better. I just felt empty. But then I felt my heart get warm. Physically warm. It kept on warming up until it was hot and a little uncomfortable.

I knew it was a sign from God, and I simply accepted it. I waited in the silence and knew I had surrendered it all.

We did separate, we did sell the house, and we did go through bankruptcy. But God carried me and my little son all the way through it. A year and a half later I quit my job with its long commute and moved to the mountains, where I had wanted to live since I was a little girl.

My husband Alan and I became friends again and good parents to our little boy.

I started to use my teaching gifts in my new church and discovered new depths in myself.

And I talked to my mom about my experience. That’s when I found out that John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, had had exactly the same experience of a burning heart about 500 years ago. It’s famous: historians came to call what happened to him the Aldersgate Experience. And it launched a huge call to the gospel in England, America, and around the world.

I’m not John Wesley. But I’ll never forget my burning heart, the holy purpose He has for me in the world, and the overwhelming goodness of God.