New Heart 2.0

"A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh" 

Ezekiel 36:26 KJV

I was baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints 11 years ago last month;  7 years later I opened an essay about that event with the above scripture.  I rejoiced in how my closeness to the Savior had given me a new heart.  I also said this, "If someone had tried to explain to me the kind of peace and happiness I feel now, I wouldn't have believed them.  I didn't know you could feel this."  

I had been through some rough times by that point and had managed to bounce back from them.  I had consistently experienced the promise of the comfort of the Holy Ghost whenever I asked for it.  The scriptures made sense, prayers were answered in the ways I anticipated.  And when they weren't there were comfort, peace, answers.  I had no reason to be cynical, and was sometimes bothered by the cynicism of others thinking, "If they only knew what I knew."

Things got complicated in a way even my new heart was unprepared for.  My heart was broken in a way I hadn't experienced.  Pieces that had been even in my old heart were suddenly missing.  It became clear they were destroyed or gone, and were not coming back, not the way they were.  I didn't know what was supposed to happen next.  This was new.  This was not what I signed up for.  I signed up for peace and comfort, constant guidance and healing.  Instead I found my pleading soul ready to give up on wanting answers, and instead begged at least, at least for comfort.  And even that felt empty.  And it kept feeling empty.  

It healed, after a while.  I hardly even knew it was happening, but bit by bit my 'new' heart was replaced by newer components until finally it was a complete and updated version.  New Heart 2.0.  Sometimes I wonder if it's a better heart... It's newer.  But sometimes I miss the old unscathed heart that doesn't have such memories of pain and confusion.  I traded it...somewhat unwillingly for a heart that is perhaps not as pristine, but has weathered the storm of clinging to faith.  

I know 2.0 is a better heart.  It feels more deeply my own joy, fear, and sadness as well as that of others, which was scary as strong feelings were what I felt had broken my old heart.  I over-engineered walls protecting it to be tall and strong so that it might never be tested.  Because of the new range and depth of emotions it carried I thought it also might be more fragile than the last version, a risk I wasn't willing to take.  But God did not update my heart for it to be kept in a glass case.  Believing in him creates a draw that is non-compulsory but completely compelling, urging you to use your whole heart to the very fullest.  I have discovered that New Heart 2.0 is deeper AND stronger. 

This means I can be brave again.  And I am doing just that.  New hearts are the truest testament of the power of God in my life, and I anticipate version 3.0, when I am ready.

Yea, come unto  Christ, and be perfected in him...

and if by the grace of God ye are perfected in Christ, 

ye can in nowise deny the power of God. 

-Moroni 10:32