Heart in a Box

Surgeon Cristina Yang's attending physician tells her to create a list of all the heart surgeries she has ever wanted to do. Cristina pores over books and books and creates a massive list of incredible, impossible surgeries that she is dying to get her hands on. In the meantime, she is asked to watch a heart as it sits in a box. The task to her seems trivial, but begrudgingly, she agrees.

The heart in a box is a heart that is taken out of a human and placed in a glass box, hooked up to a machine, waiting to be transplanted into another viable human body. This heart that exists in the fictional realm of Seattle Grace Hospital, this heart in a box, is beating and pumping and operating without a body. It's a miracle.

And as Cristina is poring over her list and feeding this desire she has to see the impossible and the miraculous, she realizes that what she has in front of her is exactly what she seeks. And she sees that there are very few things that could top this miracle of a heart. What could she ask for that's better than what is right in front of her?

I think a part of us wants God to prove Himself. God, show us the big, the impossible, show us something awesome. God, this life feels mundane, give me something really show-stopping. It's easy to bypass the everyday miracles we have in front us because we just aren't satisfied with them. We want to jump to the big, jump to the end, skip the difficulties, because we just can't see the point. The process of things moves at a pace we don't like. We are impatient beings. We miss seeing God right in front of us.

Every breath we breathe is a gift and a miracle. It is the most beautiful thing we possess. Our everyday lives, the routines, are a powerful example of who God is.

What I find most compelling about the heart in the box is that I miss the power of it too. Our lives are full of breathtaking, astonishing, astounding, incredible, miraculous moments.. and for some reason, we're discontent. We see the heart in the box and we walk past, nod, sigh, and ask for something greater. Is it just me? In this current season of change and process, adjustment and transition, I don't want it to be this way. I distrust that God has His hand in the mundane, the mundane IS His beauty, and that He is working beautiful things through a process. I am dissatisfied and discontent and keep my head down, poring over my lists of what miraculous things I want to see.

But the miraculous is what I'm living!

What we have is God-ordained. We can't speed up the process - we'll miss the power and the beauty. Process is defined as 'a series of actions or steps taken in order to achieve a particular end.' Those actions and steps - I want them to be quick. But we can't miss God in those!

I love meeting with my girl Cicy every week and diving into discipleship and Scripture. I love getting emails from volunteers who are excited about what they do and what is to come. I love reading the books for my Theology class. I love a cup of coffee. I love reading through the Bible in a year with a dear friend. And I am learning to love that these beautiful things, along with the frustrating, are the products of the gifts God has given me in the place that God has put me.

Right in front of me is the day to day. The day to day is our process. God is in the process. Process is to be praised. God is to be praised.

Gratitude is the key.

I started reading a book this summer called 'One Thousand Gifts' that preached thankfulness, joy, in the everyday. Sometimes I think Ann Voskamp wrote that book for me. She writes, "I have lived the runner, panting ahead in worry, pounding back in regrets, terrified to live in the present, because here-time asks me to do the hardest of all: just open wide and receive."

Today, open wide and receive. Not anxiously look ahead to what we spend time worrying about or can't wait to get to. See our everyday and sing praises of gratefulness for them. Today, count each moment. Not look ahead and wonder in frustration why we don't have everything figured out. But see the figuring out as beautiful steps in God's plan. Remember each day that God is always good and I am always loved. This is what our hearts in a box reveal - God is big, He is good, and He wants us to see each moment, each 'small' thing, as something He has crafted. And we are loved. The frustrating, hard, tricky, tiring, slow things are evidences that we are loved because it is through these things that we learn God showers us with good gifts.

God is always good and I am always loved. The changes, the process of learning new things, that's the beauty. The end product, what is the end until we join Christ in the new heaven and new earth, is lovely and beautiful and God-orchestrated. And the details are not like how I see them - chaotic, disorganized, annoying. They are beautiful and special and they are evidence.

In thankfulness, I see that the small picture actually contains the big. The small picture isn't to wade in and get lost. It is to see the heart of God and to take each breath in thankfulness. Being grateful for the death and resurrection of Christ compels me forward.

It's all about the heart. Where our hearts rest in the moment. We can't miss it.

What I have right in front of me is the beauty, the miracle.

What can I ask for that's better than what is right in front of me?