Once upon a heartbeat…

This fall, my husband and I celebrated the four year anniversary of the start of our business, and what an adventure it’s been? From moving in with my mom and dad to keep expenses low, to buying forklifts and pieces of inventory, we have learned time and again that owning and operating your own business is not for the faint of heart.

Yet through it all, God has been faithful, so abundantly faithful.

I recently found a journal I kept, back in the beginning and the following entry caught my eye. It was written during a time when our business was small and struggling, a time when the phrase, “turning a profit” seemed foreign, at time when we didn’t know if we would make it. I’d like to share it with you now in hopes that it will encourage your heart as it encouraged mine:

July 25, 2011

On Friday Chris and I received a call from two of our dear friends. They had just found out that they were expecting! On Sunday we invited them to lunch, only to find that they were in the E.R. with complications stemming from the pregnancy.

Needless to say, this was difficult news in the face of such joy and excitement.

Today is Monday. At a follow-up appointment with a doctor they were able to hear the baby’s heartbeat. As best as the doctors can tell, they are, at most, six weeks pregnant. At six weeks a typical fetus is hardly the size of a peanut, but this little peanut, thanks to an awesome God, has a heartbeat!

Tonight, as Chris and I prayed we thanked God for this blessing, this sign of life, and as we continued our prayer I heard God to my heart.

Our business has struggled this year. Not in a dramatic sense, but the growing pains of a two-year-old business are evident. I, at times, has taken a toll on all of us.

But tonight as we prayed for our friends and this newest life, God reminded me that our business is not much different.

Yes, right now, our business seems small. At times it may even appear to be struggling, fighting for life, but it has a heartbeat! And in due time this heartbeat will manifest into something great and beautiful. Something alive beyond measure.

I trust this because I trust him. This is his way. The beat of his heart is for life. The beat of his heart is for us.

A heartbeat. Sometimes this is the only sign of life we have. Whether it’s a baby we cradle inside, a business, a relationship, a dream, when a heartbeat is all we’ve got, we must remember that a heartbeat is all we really need to sustain life, to grow a dream, to trust the ways of a loving God.

Because our God works. He works in the big and the small. He works in that which thrives and he works when all hope seems lost.

He works in heartbeats and his yield is life. 

Sweet friends, may you wake up this day to the fairy tale found in the magic, in the miracle of a heartbeat. May you see his signs of life in all things big and small. In all things whole and broken.

May you know that the beat of his heart is for life.

May you know that the beat of his heart is for you.