"Rend your heart, and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity."
Joel 2:13
Long ago, to demonstrate grief, people would tear their clothes. I love the visual metaphor of rending my heart, grieviously tearing it assunder for God to cleanse and repair. The heart is the source of good and evil. It's the womb for thought seeds. If my heart belongs to God, plants of worth and beauty will flourish there. But if Satan creeps under the gate like a persistant weed, slowly the goodness and loveliness are choked out by selfish thorns.
Lord, praises from my lips rise to you for you are gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love! May your spirit freely produce fruit in my heart's garden so that I may be just like you.
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