letters from johnnie

erica: "HUUUUN...your letter from Johnnie is here," as I drop the mail on the counter.

aron: "Oh, you mean my good friend, John Eldredge? Yeah, I was expecting that. He writes me every month...surprised you didn't know that."

This happens once a month, every month. Just like this. We are gloriously predictable at times.

Aron does get letters from one of our most favorite authors, Johnnie E., every month; except, they're addressed, "Dearest Friends," so apparently many other people do too. That's okay, we'll take it; we'll glean from his wisdom in whatever form it comes.

I wanted to share with you a small excerpt from this month's Johnnie letter concerning matters of the heart:

I came out this morning to the most glorious sunrise I've seen in a long time. The kind that takes up the entire sky...all of the clouds were salmon color except those closest to where the sun would rise; they were golden. The glory of the color was made more brilliant by the contrast of the grey tops of the clouds. The sun has not yet risen. There was a column of light, glorious, shooting straight up through the sunrise. I've only seen that once before. I knew God was giving me a picture.

The picture was portraying the true beauty of what had just taken place the prior four days

We just finished a Captivating retreat in the mountains. More than 350 women came from all over the world to meet Jesus in a deep and intimate way. To have their hearts deeply healed. To be set free from the assaults of darkness. It was...glorious. Like the sunrise. The rescue of a human heart is the most beautiful thing on earth. There is simply nothing that even compares.

For a heart is the treasure of any person's life - the heart is what enables us to love, to know God, to laugh, to, to have friendships and romance, to feel passion, to fight injustice, to take in beauty, to live. So when the heart is wounded, bound, held captive, and dying, everything else in life withers. Every relationship - especially our relationship with God. Every work we are called to . All the glories of life fade away.

And so the ransom of a human heart ransoms everything - a life, and then many lives, and all the beauty of those lives. And thus the Kingdom of God advances.

How true are these words! I see it all around me. I see it in my own spirit. The ransom of the human heart...the great awakening of the spirit of man to that of his Maker's. This is the passion that burns in my spirit - to see hearts come alive to Christ, come alive to his love, come alive to true life.

ejk