Heart to Hearts:: Dear friends, thank you so much for all of the comments, messages and emails this last week. They have truly ministered to me and my family as we move past the 7th year mark with an empty chair at the dinner table. I truly had no idea that my weekly notes to Jessie had helped so many. I wrote for my own heart and have now discovered it helped many other hearts. Your tidal wave of love rushed up on my shore and my only response is to share more. So I have decided to write a new post called Heart to Hearts. Not sure if it will be weekly, but it will be real and raw. You all know I’m an open book with many broken parts. It will be more about life, parenting, relationships, leading, legacy and faith. It’s simply going to be something that is on “my heart” that I hope helps “other hearts”. If you wish to share a topic you would like for me to share “my heart” about, please leave a comment or email me erikrees@jessie.org. I would love to hear from you. I’m not an expert, but I do have experiences.
For my first post, I’m going to share about “heartbeats”. Our hearts are roughly the size of our fist and beats thousands of times a day. Our hearts “beat” to pump blood through our bodies and keep us alive. Without our “hearts”, we are nothing. I also believe we all have an “emotional heartbeat”. Our emotional heartbeat speeds up when we encounter things that we love to do. Not “like to do” but “LOVE TO DO”. These are things we crave, long for and deeply desire. This could be singing, gardening, running, helping others…the list is endless.
If I look back at my 50 years of life, my emotional heartbeat has changed from time to time. I truly believe that our experiences impact our emotional heartbeat and can even change the rhythm. I used to be “addicted” to fitness and loved helping people reach their goals. This emotional heartbeat to help others find fitness success came out of my own pain as a child. See, I was really overweight in grade school and others used to make fun of me. My nickname was “Oopma Luumpa”. Yes, from the movie Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Wanting to make a change in my life, I found sports and exercise and it changed my life in so many ways. My bachelors degree is in health and fitness and I wanted to be a physical therapist growing up. Then God called me to be a pastor and my addiction changed to helping people in life who lived what I called “confused and cluttered lives”. Helping people find “clarity and confidence” in life fueled my heart so much. I have had the honor of writing several books on this topic and teaching thousands around the world. Once Jessie moved to Heaven, my emotional heartbeat changed for families that had heard the frightening phrase…”I’m sorry, your child has cancer”. Honestly, prior to March 3, 2011 when Jessie was diagnosed, I had no clue about childhood cancer. Seven years later, I know more than I wish I did. The truth is, my emotional heartbeat changed, and I need to let it beat loud and proud. Knowing there are families impacted by childhood cancer feeling lonely drives me to find ways to make them feel loved and encouraged. I hated feeling “alone” and would never want a family in their darkest time to feel anything but loved and supported.
I have also discovered many people choose to hide their emotional heartbeat in fear of judgement or the unknown. When we decide to not let our emotional heartbeats “beat”, we are robbing ourselves of JOY. I truly hope if you are reading this you know your “emotional heartbeat” and find freedom in letting it beat loud and proud. If not, please consider letting it beat a little more each day. When you do, you will feel better and the world will be a better place.
Due to this being my first Heart to Hearts entry, please let me know if it helped at all. I love to write even though my grammar and spelling isn’t top of the class=). I will continue to write if it helps just one “heart”. I also have no desire to force something that isn’t helpful. That is a waste of time and time is the most precious thing we have. If this post caused you to pause, reflect, etc., please let me know.
Much love dear friends…
xoxo,
Erik
