Heartbeat

Good morning God,

I do like the words of the Psalmist - 'I will praise the Lord for I am wonderfully and fearfully made'. They have provided a real focus for my thoughts as I lie here strapped to a monitor which measures my life potential by the beat of my heart, a heart which is racing far too fast for the doctor's liking. I can't be too upset about it though, after all, the rapid pulse was the only hint we had of the dangerous clot in my lung.

The bed opposite me has held a young girl of 19. She was due to start college yesterday to study to be a forensic scientist. Her heartbeat however is far, far too slow. She had been able to hide her frail thin body from most prying eyes, but her heart knew the full story of her anorexia nervosa. From 22st. to 6st in a year.

One heart that beats too quickly, one heart that beats too slowly.

I long to live, she longs to die. For the last two days she has wept, begged and pleaded to be allowed to go home - and I have been powerless to share with her the extra beats of my heart.

I have too much, she has too little - and I want to know why God.

I want to know why you saved me, and how I can help to save her from herself and from a society which does not see how we are killing our young people by failing to teach them that they are wonderfully and fearfully made GOOD.

Would 'inviting Jesus into her heart' make it beat faster - or would it just give her something else to beat herself over the head with if she failed to live up to what she thinks are the expectations of the other Christians she meets. She doesn't need religion and a new set of thou shalt nots, she need a friend who can see her and tell her who she really is, a wonderfully, fearfully made - and easily broken - child of God - whose life should not be measured in stones or kilograms but in opportunities and heartbeats.

Tell me God, where are the friends of your friends? Where is the counter-cultural voice that speaks the truth not in piety but simplicity, loud enough so that it can be heard wherever young women and men sacrifice their lives to the media manufactured idols of our day?

This is not about young people in the Church - this is about young lives being lost, wasted, in the pursuit of false gods which will only tell them they are 'worth it' when they spend their money and their life trying to be what they are not.

They are worth life now - but they no longer believe it.

The young girl opposite cannot see herself with anything other than self-loathing. She is so disgusted with herself and so afraid that she will become 22st again if she eats normally that she would rather continue starving herself to death. She does not believe she will die, she does believe she will get fat - and belief is a powerful thing - people are prepared to die for their beliefs as well you know God.

so help me God,

give me the words to say to spark a new belief in her of her own intrinsic worth. Help me to share something of what makes me believe my life is worth fighting for so that she might begin to see and hear what it means to be wonderfully and fearfully made, by YOU.