GoldenHeart: How to Love Humanity was named one of the Top 100 Spirituality books of all time by BookAuthority! I was shocked and then I cried. GoldenHeart was part of a long journey — and a very spiritual one — that took me from utter despair to one of my greatest joys and passions.
When I wrote GoldenHeart, it was after a frank conversation with God. I had a devastating fall apart in my life. Everything I had trusted and believed dissolved before my eyes. Faith and family have always resided at my core. It was like someone pressed a destruct button and everything I prized deserted me.
That’s a good moment to speak with the One upstairs. I asked, “What do you want me to do?” Because I could barely pray and didn’t want to live. People worry about saying things like this. I was not going to harm myself, but I didn’t have the will to participate in the drama anymore. The exits away from the scenario would all hurt deeply and involve a lot of work.
Within thirty seconds of asking God what He wanted me to do, the entire concept of GoldenHeart: How to Love Humanity popped into my head like a download. I felt then that God had given me this book to write. As I wrote it, and worked feverishly to catch up to the ideas forming in my mind, I realized with humility that God had given me this book concept to save my life, then to save others, and ultimately, to serve in the lives of more people than I can count. It felt huge from the beginning.
If you are going through challenging times and every day is a struggle, I would like you to know that God excels in this area. When you have nothing left, pray. Things do not happen instantly. I think this occurs because so many lives intersect here. A change for you can impact others.
When I felt like nothing worse could happen and had to put Bible verses on Post It notes on doors to keep me moving, suddenly, God took over and used my pitiful weakness to usher in a new age of understanding.
I thought that family was everything and all of my love was intended for them. Looking back, my view of spirituality was limited to a small circle of people. Sure, I loved people everywhere because I was raised that way, but my happiness revolved around my focus on family and faith.
Then, there was no one. Sudden emptiness.
You know what God told me with GoldenHeart? That if I cannot love one person because they have removed themselves from me, then I can love all of humanity. We are not here to love one person.
If you are thinking that your close loved ones are what life is about, then what happens when some pass away? Who do you love then? Because either you or they will exit the equation one day. Death is an inevitability. In psychology, death is a top stressor of the human experience. All of our skills are needed to deal with some deaths of those close to us.
Regardless of your pain, if you expand your love to humanity, then your love is bigger than one person. When one is removed, it surely hurts, but you have the understanding that for your whole life, you will love many people in a variety of ways. Some need you desperately, and for some, I believe YOU are the only one that can save them with your compassion, kindness, caring, and service.
I can only think of myself in this moment as a tiny part of a gigantic history of humankind, and that God would look down upon me in distress and send me an instant book to write to save me and to reach you, I cannot believe that I am worth that time. However, at the same time, I know that God loves us deeply, so much more than we can understand. Babies don’t love us like we love them, not to the same depth. And we cannot love God as He loves us. As he loves YOU.
If you are struggling now, GoldenHeart is designed to speak to your heart and ultimately determine what your love mission is for the world, as well to investigate in the appendix fourteen Bible studies that have one main goal — to show you how God loves and how He loves you. I sobbed while writing the Bible studies when I wrote them and again when I edited them. I feel blessed to have been inspired in such a way and with such a blessing task. In the writing, love was revealed to me in a deeper capacity. I did not write about it in my book, but I felt guilty that I assigned little time to love One who loves me with such enduring force, and resolved that I will will continually pray, study the Bible, and speak with my loving God.