The Heartbeat of Jesus, Why I Live

I was wandering the woods in my amnesia, 
Following the lights to scattered campfires, wandering to who knows where.
The moon was full
My heart was hungry
Who am I? Where am I?  So lost, confused and crying.
When my father held me as a baby, his heartbeat soothed my every tear.

When I am close to Jesus, I am near his heartbeat too. 
I am a baby in his arms and His Sacred Heart holds my heart in the safest place I'll ever be.
As I grew older, my dad and I camped by the river. The heartbeat of the river soothed me in the intoxicating laurel thicket where we slept.
Every evening, my dad's friend would say, “This is the life.”

Years passed when I could not hear that heartbeat.
All I could hear were chaotic sounds of need and fear,
frantic crickets and cicadas seeking quickly fleeting mates.
The moon was full
My heart was hungry
Starving, all alone.

One day, I will find myself, floating on my back, nailed to my cross.
I won't move there but I'll be freer than in all my life, alongside of Jesus in that river of peace.
Indifferent to my pain, my peace will deepen, more than I have ever known. He has showed me that.
Jesus, floating with me, will say to me, with all delight, “My child, this is the life.”

The Cross, it is the Life, the life that pulls me back into the rhythm of His heart at His breast and the waves in their joy, “My child my child, this is the Only Life.”
My heart is full
As the moon fades into dawn.
Amen.
-Laura Paxton 11/02/2013