I've Got the Joy, Joy, Joy, Joy...

I've been carrying this picture around for a while planning to share it. It accompanied a heartwarming story in our local newspaper.

So here goes...

Can you guess what this woman is doing?

Yes, she's hugging,

 but more than that, she's listening. 

She's listening to beating of her son's heart.  

The man in the picture isn't her son. He's just the man who received her son's heart by transplant. He is alive today because that woman's young son died in a car accident.

Sometimes, a picture really is worth a thousand words. If I had those thousand words, I don't think I could do justice to the gift of salvation as beautifully as that one picture, do you?

Of course, I wouldn't go so far as to compare the mother to God completely. I've never met her, but I think it's safe to assume that given the option, she wouldn't have chosen that plan.  I'm sure she had hopes and dreams for her child like all parents do, and dying so that another man might live wasn't one of them.

Who would make a plan like that? 

No, I wouldn't go so far as to compare her to God, but I think it's safe to say that she understands the heart of the Father just a little more intimately than most of us do. I think she understands why He loves us and why it is that He holds us so closely.  And I think she  knows the sound that brings Him the greatest joy. 

It's the sound of the heart of the believer
 beating with the gift of the Son.
  

I am crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. The life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me. 

Galations 2:20 NASB

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