One Man's Account of the Saving Power of the Sacred Heart by Kolbe Meyers

“That’s when I noticed I couldn’t feel my heartbeat. I was looking for it and I got a little worried, but then an image popped into my head and I imagined my heart. It was broken like shattered glass. Another blow. I didn’t have the capacity to love with a heart like that, no one would, but I wanted to love again. I was helpless until I looked at Christ in the Eucharist again.”

Like anybody else’s story, mine starts before I can remember, but I’m gonna sum up the first half to save everyone a little time. I grew up in a good Catholic household, the best I could ever hope for. Eleven siblings, a loving mother and father who provided for us in every way they could, both parents committed to God and committed to sharing Christ with us so we could grow up to find what they have found, which is authentic love and faith in Him. They did a great job and I grew up never doubting the existence of Christ and his sacrifice for us, because I knew the truth.

However, even though I knew the truth, I never really lived it growing up. I always believed in God but I fell for just about every trap outside of that. I’d always make excuses like, “I’ll get around to being a good Catholic, it’s just a lot of work.” “I believe in God, but I also wanna have fun in my life.” “I can do the bare minimum, as long as I’m reaching the bar, right?” Even when I found myself in places like St. Therese’s Camp, Alaska’s Catholic Youth Conference, and youth group, where I learned more than I ever appreciated, whenever I’d hear someone contradict how I thought I would just write it off by thinking, “They’re right, so I’ll get around to it… later.” The truth is, God grants all of our hearts deepest desires, and living life through him blesses you in ways you can hardly guess. I just didn’t know that.

Come fourteen or fifteen years old, I’d made friends who shared the Catholic faith and they called me higher bit by bit to challenge myself and reach that next stepping stone. Bit by bit, we were headed the right direction, until I was about seventeen. We had a huge fight and the whole group split, everyone took sides and stuck only with those they agreed with. I was left with just a few friends, and we were close for a while. One day that changed when I had done something to break my closest friend’s trust, and then I only made things worse by lying about it in hopes he wouldn’t catch on. Soon enough he did, and neither of us handled it well. We threw stones back and forth until eventually, after a year or so, none of our friends wanted a part in it and we all split.

I had found myself alone, without any friends, and distancing myself from my family because I was convinced it was a matter of time before they wouldn’t want anything to do with me if I didn’t. That was a mistake I’m blessed to know never to repeat. The biggest problem I had was I felt I had no one left to turn to and nowhere else to go. I had begun to go numb. I was scared if I didn’t, that I’d be consumed by all the pain and loneliness I felt. At that point, my faith was hanging by a thread, but something inside of me knew I needed it. Something inside me knew I had to start chasing after a deeper faith. Come a month before confirmation, two months from turning nineteen, I remember asking myself what went wrong and two things hit me. First, that I had a friend this whole time and He’s been waiting for me to see Him. I had just never chosen to trust Him as a friend, and more so as my God. Second, that through all the relationships I’d had in life, not one was built with God as the foundation. Not one was made praying for God’s love and strength to come in where mine fails. It was an utterly humbling moment that would lay the foundation for where I am today.

Come the day of my confirmation, my problems weren’t all magically solved. I was still numb to most of life around me, but I was starting to hope that I had a path forward. I finally started to see what’s been missing and God had only just started to work on what I hadn’t let Him for so long.

Just a month later, NCYC was coming up. I had wanted to chaperone for the youth group but all the spots were full and I didn’t feel all that prepared either, so I thought it was for the best. Then comes the morning they were all leaving. All of my parish’s male chaperones got sick enough that they couldn’t make it. I got a phone call that morning asking if I could be ready to go by 9 PM and instead of saying, “That’s crazy, I don’t even have a ticket!” I decided it’s worth every try I’ve got. So, I tell the youth group leader, “I’ll see what I can do.” When I say no trip preparations have ever gone smoother, I mean it. Everything went so well we even made it to the airport early, just like I was supposed to be there. I knew I was. I thought it was to be a good adult example for the youth, and in a big part, that is the idea, it’s true, and that’s what I went for.

I learned the night we were having adoration for the whole conference that there was more for me than just being a chaperone. 10,000 people in a stadium for two hours in adoration is a sight to behold, but my focus was on Christ. The MC was speaking on the mic, addressing this crowd of 10,000 when something he said hit me square in the chest. He said, “Maybe there’s something in your life you can’t fix. Maybe you’ve jumped… and maybe you’ve been dropped so many times… that you’ve just stopped jumping. God won’t drop you...” And when I heard him say those words, they were meant for me. Not just for me, but absolutely for me. I was taken aback by it. I thought my life was fixed and I was good, but if that’s so, why did it hit so hard?

That’s when I noticed I couldn’t feel my heartbeat. I was looking for it and I got a little worried, but then an image popped into my head and I imagined my heart. It was broken like shattered glass. Another blow. I didn’t have the capacity to love with a heart like that, no one would, but I wanted to love again. I was helpless until I looked at Christ in the Eucharist again. There he was with his Sacred Heart held outwards towards us, towards me. Still looking for my heartbeat with one hand, I reached out the other towards Christ, my hand open, and I said quietly, “Lord, my heart is yours.” Both giving my broken mess completely to him, and asking for his to take place of mine. I barely finished saying those words when I didn’t just feel, but I heard a *thump* and the thump continued roaring, and I knew my prayers were heard. That God wasn’t just willing to give his heart to us as a group, he was willing to give his heart completely to me. I’m one of those people who don’t really cry, but that was the first time in two years I had cried, and probably one of the few times since to this day. Silent unstoppable tears.

That night I was given a gift I never could have imagined. In that moment it was like every loose strand and every seemingly dead end started tying together. It might sound like a cliche, but God was the missing puzzle piece, and everything in my life came into a new focus. I finally saw there was more for me, and since I had been given so much all my life, it was time I started giving back to the one who deserves it most. To this day, I still look back on that night in adoration, and I will always be thankful. I’ll never deserve this gift, but God gives himself freely.

This is still only the beginning. We’re all sinners, and that will try to get in the way of our relationship with God, but God never fails those who surrender to Him and call His name. God doesn’t make our lives harder, He doesn’t make our lives boring and restricted, instead He frees us to see a love so pure in even the smallest things. He gives us the strength to face the evil’s in our lives and to defeat them by His grace. He makes life worth living, and in a world full of everything pulling you every direction, He’s the one foundation that will never fail. As Saint Padre Pio sums it up better than I could, “Pray, hope, and don’t worry. Worry is useless. God is merciful and will hear your prayer.”

ABOUT KOLBE MEYERS: This is Kolbe Myers, a 20 year old man from Alaska. He is an EMT, he spends time serving the poor through a local Catholic mission group, and volunteers his time with the youth group of his home parish and anywhere else that pops up.