Broken, and Beating.

"I'm finished and done with low living, sight walking, smooth knees, colorless dreams..." The Fellowship of the Unashamed 

The leather was worn. Those new boots, the ones I had opened up for Christmas, now had round marks on the toes. Three months it took for new leather in dark caramel, that used to shine so brightly, to fade to light camel brown.

I guess you could say I'm tough on my things. Especially shoes and blue jeans. My favorite pairs I wear until the holes in them are straight through to my skin and there's no hiding it anymore. But when I find things I love, I just love them. Completely. Fully. Totally. Everyday. 

But I was sad, the day I looked down at these brand new boots and saw the imperfection. I thought about who would notice, and how tacky it would look to wear them to work.  And as I analyzed the two smudged circles where the leather had faded, I began to smile. 

My faded toes were from kneeling. Moments of prayer had found me on my knees daily. The toes of my boots had brushed the carpet so often, that there was a physical wearing away of the leather. Two small circles, full of imperfection, but then, so full with love. 

I love hard, they say. I'm an all in girl. If I love you, like I love my jeans and boots, I love you fully and completely. And sometimes my heart feels like my boots. Pieces are no longer there. They are gone. Pieces of my heart are torn away in the love I give and do not get in return. Pieces of my heart are broken off in the forgiveness I so often fight to find the strength to choose. My heart breaks in others' sadness, in lost loved ones, and in moments of rejection. My heart cracks when the love I give is not enough, falls short, or cannot save the day. But I choose love anyways. There in my imperfect heart, in the broken pieces, I choose love. 

And I look into my heart and I know it's broken.

So often I think that's a reason to give up. It hurts to love. It shatters you. It wears away pieces that were once so perfectly whole. And people often ask why then, I would choose to reach out, or fight for love, or make the extra step to love someone who has no ability to love me back. And sometimes I ask myself the same questions. But then, once again, I choose love. And maybe partly because I want to and maybe partly because I know nothing else. But, perhaps most profoundly, because God places my heart, time and time again, in those moments where I know fully that I need to. 

So my heart gets worn, like my boots, day in and day out. And there it sits, beating, and broken. 

But broken so beautifully, because in cracks of given love, there are pieces of hearts poured out for me. There are moments of love that fill the small holes. There's laughter that patches up cracks. My heart is broken and full of the smiles and hugs and tears, I love all equally. My heart is full of the seconds I know someone trusts my belief in them. Pieces are glued back together in the moments I know my love for them matters. And my heart is broken, beating, and full. 

The leather on my boots is gone. I will never get it back. It was rubbed away on the overly used carpet under the kneelers of the church floor. And it will stay there as a piece of the love I gave to the Lord. But the pieces of my heart, they are torn off for people. The pieces are ripped  away for people that I could not stop loving if I tried. I won't get those pieces back either. And I'm completely good with that. Instead of a perfect heart, I have a heart that is full, not of me, but of every amazing person God has given me the opportunity to love. 

I am not the type of girl who's boots always look brand new, and who's jeans never fade, and I am not a girl who's heart is perfectly unmoved. I am a girl who loves fully, and who's heart is fully broken, out of love, and fully filled, out of love too. My life is not smooth, but it is beautiful just the same. My boots, my blue jeans, my people, I choose them. 

My heart is so worn. I choose love anyways.