Loss is Gain

I just saw the movie Soul Surfer, the story of surfer Bethany Hamilton. It gave me quite a bit to think about and now I would like to share my ponderments with you.

Have you ever lost something and it changed your life forever? Bethany Hamilton lost her arm and it changed her's. She could have let it change her for the worse, but she made it change her for the better. When faced with loss she refused to let it effect her negatively. Instead, she used it to excel in her sport as well as change her perspective on life.

I too, have lost. However, I didn't loose what I lost as a child, or a teen...I was born with a loss. I was born with a deformed heart, and as a result, I am missing the use of a valve. There is nothing worse than not being able to do every day activities. For Bethany, it was a challenge to cut food and put her hair up. For me, it was a challenge to breathe.

As anyone who has gone through a loss, Bethany asked, "Why would God let this happen?" I have asked the same. Why would God allow someone to be born with such a condition that made walking up a flight of stairs nearly impossible? Why would God create something so messed up? What kind of God would impair his own creation? Here's why....so that his creation could learn the valuable lesson of love. If I was born normal, I would have no reason to love others. Knowing loss has given me the desire to give back to others what they have lost. In the movie Soul Surfer a reporter asks Bethany if she would go back and change what happened if she could. Her reply was this: "No, I wouldn't change a thing, because then I wouldn't be here talking to you, I can embrace more people now then I could with two arms."

I may be missing the use of a valve, but because of my loss, I know how to love deeper than most people with 4 properly working valves.

Loss, if looked at from the right perspective, can lead to the ability to love more sincerely and deeply than you ever could before.

One must have enormous strength to love with all of their heart and that strength must come from the Lord. I shared the following verse with a crowd of about 500 college students one day in chapel:

"..there was given to me a thorn in the flesh...For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me. And he said unto me, 'My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness.' Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me...For when I am weak, then am I strong."

Those who have lost the most, have the most. Those who have been too weak to walk or even stand, are the strongest. And those who learn that with God nothing is impossible are the ones capable of anything.

My Glass Heart- an original poem by Heather Rachael Owens

My Glass Heart--by Heather Rachael Owens

These thoughts surround me. They make me tense. I can’t seem to climb over this mile high fence. My heart is so empty, so cold, and so hollow. God please show which path I should follow. My past hunts me down like a lion it’s prey, and I suffer from regrets day after day. The nights I spent crying on the bedroom floor remind me how much I need you more, than any human’s love that they can offer, sometimes I feel so hypocritical you’d think me a scoffer. God I love you, but this hurt won’t let me go. The regrets I feel are beginning to show. I’m afraid of what he will think of me, when he finds out just how sinful I can be. Those seven deadly sins, they claw at my skin. It’s a fight every night trying not to give in, to the temptation that whispers sweet death in my ear, I cannot do this without you, my Jesus, I fear. I think back on the night I gave it all and I think with shock at how far I did fall. My heart was as ice, I thought his touch would suffice. I thought love was a game that I was trying to win, but it only led me to commit the ultimate sin. My mind and my heart became like callus feet, I would give anything for those sins to delete. My glass heart is bleeding, with every beat it shatters, with every beat it breaks at the thought of how much my sins matter and how much my heart aches. God, I know you’ve forgiven the things I have done, please don’t let them affect the love I think I have won. I want a second chance at this thing called love, I want to do it right as you watch from above. Remind him I’m human, I’ve lived through so much. I need to feel a pure and holy touch. I’ve got one last thing to say before this rhythm that I’m in slips away. God remind me that love is everlasting, patient, and true, and that I must always remember to first love you.

My glass heart is bleeding, with every beat, it shatters. With every beat, it breaks.

Curiosity [[Random Ramblings of the Heart]]

Curiosity [[Random Rambles of the Heart]]

by Heather Owens





Curiosity, that is what entangles me.

I’m curious to know if you just might love me.

I could see myself with a guy like you

I’d like to think we would have a chance.

These feelings are so new to me.

This hope that I have is suffocated by the fear in my heart;

Knowing you will never feel the same as I do,

But hoping that somehow you just might pick me.

In this sky of beautiful stars

I don’t shine as bright as the others

But I hope you notice my faint sparkle

Because you are my moon, my sun, my whole sky.

You cause me sleepless, poetic nights,

You fill my mind as I wake with the sunrise,

And you circle through my dreams each time the moon hangs in space.

We don’t have to dive into this ocean of love,

But instead, we could wade in inch by inch

That way, there’s no chance of drowning,

But just so you know,

I'm caught in your undertow.