Thursday, May 20, 2010

Boss Your Heart

I hope some (or all) of you have had a chance to read about the short, but amazing life of Chrissie Patterson at All Our Precious in His Sight. She was adopted from Serbia seven months ago and went home to be with Jesus yesterday after complications from open-heart surgery.

There was a day during her stay in the hospital when they were trying to get her off the heart/lung machine. It was urgent because there were complications. Her mom was standing by her side praying, when God gave her the words to tell Chrissie to boss her heart to start beating properly. You see, Chrissie loved any opportunity to be the boss. Well, Chrissie responded! Her heart started to beat in the correct rhythm. Every time the doctors needed her body to do something, Chrissie's mom would tell her to boss it into happening. And Chrissie did. It was amazing!

On Tuesday night, just hours before Chrissie died, her mom posted a fundraiser that another mom was doing. It is a beautiful handmade necklace that says, "Boss Your Heart."
Boss Your Heart Hand Stamped Necklace for Chrissie Fundraiser

The mom who made it talked about how God had impressed on her that we ALL need to boss our hearts. Satan wants to tell us that we are worthless, failures, and unlovable but we know the truth of God's word. We are of precious worth, treasured, and can do all things through Him who gives us the strength. We need to boss our hearts into BELIEVING the truth.

We also sometimes allow ourselves to fall into bad habits and we need to boss our hearts against them.

This morning, my devotional was along the same lines (don't you love when that happens?)
"We fail because we are ignorant of the way we are made. We say the devil made us do it instead of our own undisciplined natures.... One example is moods. Moods never go away by praying. Moods go by kicking. We have to take ourselves by the scruff of the neck and shake ourselves...The curse with most of us is that we won't."

So how about it? Do you want to "Boss Your Heart?" The necklace will not only be a visual reminder of 'taking every thought captive' but it will also help Chrissie's family pay the medical bills that they incurred during the month that their princess Chrissie was in PICU. I believe that part of Chrissie's legacy will be to help people truly live out God's truth and find healing in their lives by learning how to boss their hearts. And each time we boss our hearts, we can smile at the memory of a four year old princess from Serbia...whose parents nicknamed her the Serbian Sensation. Can't you just picture her with her hands on her hips, shaking a finger and telling you to boss your heart?

Here is the link if you would like to order one. The mom has written a moving story about how God led her to make the necklace for Chrissie.