Burning Hearts

Two months ago I started this blog by explaining its name, Emmaus Road, in a post that touched on the Gospel story of the apostles' encounter with the Risen Christ while walking on the Road to Emmaus. That same story is split between yesterday's and today's Gospel readings.

As I noted then, so often we do not recognize Christ's presence at times in our lives, especially times of trial or hardship until those times are over. Yet if we are attuned to the life of the spirit, we have the ability to access Christ's presence anytime, anywhere.

I was reminded last night of what you might call the Emmaus effect -- not being cognizant of how powerfully God is acting and teaching and loving us in our lives until something or someone opens our eyes, and we suddenly see how His works in a string of events has led you to a new and wonderful place.

Last night's eye-opener was re-reading a Valentine card from Pat that I have kept on my dresser, coincidentally since just before I started this blog. That opened my mind to wonderful changes three areas in my life, ranging from the trivial to the critically important, that have occurred recently and over a period of time.

On the trivial side, last year at this time I had just had my tennis rating bumped to 3.5 from 3.0, which was great...except that I lost every single USTA match I had in the Men's and Senior Men's league. All of them. 0 for about 12. We're not talking blowouts either -- about half went to the third set tiebreaker. Choking.

Now I'm not super-competitive, but a losing streak like that grinds you down. And then I only won one match over the summer. So I have done some soul-searching about why I play and how I play, as well as my technique. Mostly I realized that when you've been kicked like that over an extended period, you don't have anything to prove any more, nor do you have anything to lose. So you could say I'm a lot more loose.

So far this year I'm 3-1. So I thank God I am out of the slump. I've watched two different teams choke against my partner and I the way I choked last year. I am empathetic, but most of all I am thankful to be watching it happen to the other guy for a change. I can see now that my losing streak led directly to my new found winning ways, because it changed my heart, attitude, and approach.

The next area was in business, where until recently it had been about six months since I won a new piece of business. I coasted for a while on stuff already in the shop, but through it all there were two huge studies that were approved then cancelled, another even bigger one that we were a finalist for -- then that project was cancelled. We also had a promising client that we just couldn't seem to get anything going with. This also grinds you down -- even worse, because in our company if there's no work there's no income.

Now I've won two large projects in two weeks, and I have two others that are 90%+ probabilities. Looking back, that tough period laid the groundwork for these new successes in numerous ways, and set up our little company for continued prosperity even after this work is finished. More importantly I have a renewed sense of how much every good material thing -- work, projects, income -- is such a gift from God. No matter how smart I am or how hard I work, without God's love and grace and gifts I will not be successful.

Last but most importantly, the card reminded me instantly of perhaps the greatest gift I've been given, and that is my wife, Pat. About eight years ago, we went through a very difficult time in our relationship, serious enough that I questioned whether we really had a future together. It did not look promising.

During that period I prayed as hard as I knew how, and it was probably as close as I'll ever come to knowing what Christ went through the night before he died. I prayed for the survival of our marriage. I prayed for God to change me. In fact I prayed for God to break my heart of stone, and for the first time in my life I prayed that His will for me be done. I prayed and it scared me to death.

My prayers were answered in every sense -- not in a lightning-bolt-from-heaven way, but in an Emmaus Road kind of way. I saw signs along the way, and at times my heart was burning inside me, even though I didn't understand what was happening. He changed me. He changed us.

The note inside the Valentine's card said (in part), "I think things are the best they've ever been between the two of us, and I think it's going to continue that way, too." I couldn't agree more, but last night the thought struck me that in the fall of 2001 I could not have imagined a day in the future when that would be true.

And it occurs to me now that late in the day on the first Good Friday, none of the apostles could imagine a day when they would see Jesus alive again. So that was their state of mind as Cleopas and the other disciple walked along the road to Emmaus "conversing and debating" about the events of the last three days. Then Jesus came to them, not in a lightning-bolt-from-heaven way, but in an Emmaus Road kind of way, and with burning hearts "he was made known to them in the breaking of the bread."