Sadly, I have developed a case of spiritual measles. It is spotty and can be difficult to look at if you do not look at the spots where my heart is healthy and entangled with the heart of Jesus. The darker spots are those where I am sick and my heart is not healthy. Soon you realize the spots on the skin are only a symptom of the greater sickness within.

I can do a great amount to care for the spots by making cosmetic fixes so you do not see them, but of course, they still remain under the make-up. What is most disturbing is that I am not concerned with fixing the sickness, but only the cosmetic results of the sickness.

The spots tell you there is a problem; they are not the problem.

While my heart remains sick and grows increasingly so, I am frantically covering and hiding spots that continue to spread because the heart is still so sick.

God is not concerned with cosmetic fixes, because he, unlike us, is not concerned with what other people think of me.

So how is the sickness healed? My heart is only healed of its sickness with more contact with the one who heals the heart. Only that constant and continual contact will heal the sick heart.

But this only happens as I quit trying to cover up cosmetic symptoms of an internal sickness. It only happens when I quit putting a bandaid on cancer.

Also, it only happens when I let go of my stubbornness enough to actually go to the One who can heal my sick heart. I have to quit pretending 'it ain't that bad'. I have to quit trying to fix, myself, something I simply cannot fix.

My sick heart will only heal with humble contact with the healer.

Besides, if the greater sickness is healed, so also will be the cosmetic spots I work so hard to cover and hide.