By Sherly Dorney
part of the Selah Community

Delight in the Lord and he will give you the desire of your heart. 

Psalm 37:4

My grandchildren are absolutely delightful!  A hot fudge sundae, minus the calories, is delightful.  When my house is totally clean, I find that delightful.  And when God isn’t making me work on my stuff, I’m delighted to be conversing on an upbeat and positive level.  I “delight in the Lord” but not enough.

For about a million years I truly believed the desire of my heart was to have a man in my life. I’ve prayed, sacrificed, begged, pleaded, bargained, threw away all my Jimi Hendrix albums because someone convinced me they might be cursed, tithed, fasted, asked the saints for intercessions, asked people to pray for me.  You name it and I’ve done it.  Anything anyone suggested, I’ve done.  Now rushing toward sixty too quickly, I finally know a man in my life is not the deepest desire of my heart. 

My heart’s desire is to be all that God created me to be!  That means discovering my talents and using them for good.  It means healing the wounds that keep me from being whole.  It means listening to God’s whispers and being delighted that I’m being spoken to.

Had I been truly in tune with my heart’s desire, and had known the future, I would have spent that energy praying for my grandson Bryan, who is afflicted with severe ADHD and struggles so much in school and tries so hard but his talents are overlooked.  I would have spent more time feeling delight in God after being tested for leukemia, Colby’s results were negative and Garhett’s heart was healthy with no holes.  I would have begged and pleaded that my step-niece, Ryann could have died a natural death, that she and her baby would have lived a long life.   That her family would have never had to experience unthinkable pain and suffering and prayed against the evil that slithered into our family and tried to crush our spirits.

On the path of pain, when I forgot to delight, God didn’t forget me.  Instead, God delighted in me and my family and sent extraordinary healing, grace, and hope.  May we continue to delight in God and give thanks for all of our blessings and remember our true heart’s desire is our sacred relationship with God. How delightful! 

Photo by Sergiu Vălenaș on Unsplash