The Ruby Slippers

     Now begins the more lovely part of my story, thank goodness!  If someone would have told me 30 years ago, that my husband and I not only remained married, but did family ministry together, prayed together, looked at one another with genuine love, I would have never believed it.  "But Jesus looked at them and said to them, 'With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.'" (Matthew 19:26) 

     God was with me all along the way.  Like Dorothy Gale in The Wizard of Oz movie who was searching for a way to return home and didn't realize that she had the ruby slippers and they were the answer, I had the power of Jesus' love with me but didn't realize that it was the love I was looking for. To get to a home of love, I first had to journey on the "yellow-brick-road" into my own heart to find the answer.

     "And he (Jesus) said, 'What comes out of a man is what defiles a man.  For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, fornication, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a man.'" (Mark 7:20-23)  Blaming my unhappiness on others and looking to others or to material things for happiness, was futile.  Jesus taught that there is nothing on the outside that can defile us.  What defiles us, comes from within ourself and we will never find happiness or love until we have a clean heart. A quote of Ralph Waldo Emerson comes to mind, "Though we search the world over to find the beautiful, if we do not carry it with us, we find it not."

     The answer to a beautiful heart is Jesus.  Jesus is the answer, the only answer, the answer to everything in this life and eternal life. Once I stopped looking elsewhere, and looked to Jesus and me, miracles started to happen.  It required more than just desiring to change my heart.  I had to do the work with Jesus. Once new life started springing forth within me, I couldn't get enough of Jesus in His Word and Sacraments. I was finding joy in serving my family with the newfound love of Jesus in my heart.

     I know without a doubt that all of our names are written in Heaven. "Nevertheless do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven." (Luke 10:20)  Our creator, God the Father, is expecting us to one day reach our Heavenly home.  And that is exactly what I want and long for. But Satan is after my ruby slippers (Jesus' love in my heart) as he does not want me to make it home. Every day I must choose Heaven or Hell, to love or not to love.  Ever grateful for Jesus who saves me, I think to myself, "There's no place like Home.  There's no place like Home.  There's no place like Home."

"Somewhere over the rainbow, way up high

There's a land that I heard of once in a lullaby.

Somewhere over the rainbow, skies are blue

And the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true!"