One day last year as I was walking into my house from my car, I glanced down at the sidewalk and saw a tattered maple leaf in the shape of a heart. My first thought was that it was a reminder of God’s love for me. So I picked it up and put it on the dash of my car.

A short time later, I began to notice hearts in other places. At the gas station as I waited to fill up, I noticed a little heart formed from a grease spot on the ground in front of me. At the middle school where I worked, hearts started appearing everywhere. I would see them in pieces of items that had been discarded or wadded up, or sometimes in cut-outs from paper. Once I noticed a heart shape embedded in chewing gum which someone had spit out and left on the floor.

The very evening I decided to share this happening with a friend, there on my kitchen floor was a piece of dog food in the shape of a heart—as though bitten that way.

Months have passed and the sightings of hearts have increased. There have been hearts made of bath bubbles in the tub, moisturizer squirted into my hand from the pump, and little hearts from food in the sink or bread crumbs on the counter. Amidst paper scraps the dog chewed, pecan pieces left on the coffee table, yogurt on my spoon, and spinach on my plate, were more hearts. When my house was flooded from a deluge of rain, there appeared heart-shaped water drops on my rug, and when I was tearing out my watersoaked cabinets, heart-shaped pieces of wood showed up among the debris. Hearts have shown up in all sorts of places when I have least expected them, and if you ask my children, they will confirm to you that I am normally visually oblivious.

So, what is the meaning of this strange phenomenon in my life? I can’t say exactly, but I do know that I’ve been encouraged and blessed by the love that penetrates my heart with each new sighting. But, being the analytical thinker that I am, I just wonder if there is a deeper message God is trying to get through to me and perhaps to others. I know hearts are significant to God—and, obviously, He wants me to notice this with a deeper understanding than I have had before.

It is common to hear Christians say, “Jesus lives in my heart,” and we are told, asked, and even prodded to invite Jesus into our heart. The Bible says that out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. It also says that while man looks on the outward appearance, God looks at the heart. Proverbs tells us that out of the heart, springs of life flow. And the heart is the very place that Jesus offers to come in and “sup” with His followers.

One question I have asked myself is, “Why in the world would the most holy and awesome Creator of all even want to dwell in a heart in the first place?” Why would He want to be put in the deepest part of a man or woman? The dictionary calls the heart the “seat of the emotions.” A vast range and capability of both good and evil war within us in this very place. It is the place of deepest desires and longings, mixed with the memories of our deepest hurts and joys. It holds the stories of our lives, both lived and yet to come. It holds the secrets of the past and the keys to the future. Perhaps most important of all, it is the place where love originates, where it is both given and received.

The contents of the heart are also important to Jesus. Sometimes attitudes lurk in the dark places in our hearts, which surface only when we are pressured with difficulty and disappointment. God doesn’t want to live in our heart “as is”; He wants to improve and clean it up. He wants complete accessibility to all areas of our life by increasing the place of His dwelling in our heart.

How important is the surrender of the total heart to Jesus? Is it a “onetime deal” that happens at a moment of salvation, or a weekly event on Sundays? Perhaps it is a daily offering, or a moment-by-moment presentation, as essential to life as breathing. Who is it that orchestrates this surrender? Surely, it must be the One the Bible calls the “King of Kings,” who longs to live in hearts, who enables such, for without His initiation there is no hope of yielding. Amazingly, the One with all the power graciously gives it back to each person in the form of choice. The owner of a heart is the only one who can open the door to let Jesus into a life.

In marriage there is a knowing relationship. Through this “knowing,” oneness takes place and an intimacy develops between a husband and wife that no other two people share. The same is true in the relationship between Christ and His church. As His body, we enjoy a oneness with Him. When two people are intimate, there is openness, mutual receptivity, and a deep personal understanding between them. Trust is evident in actions and by observation—an obvious connection of hearts. Such is the “knowing” that Jesus longs for with each of His followers. Maybe the hearts I’ve been se eing are my “love notes” from God, as one dear friend suggested. Perhaps, He wants me to know and to share with others the depth, height, and width of His love that never fails.

God’s love in my life is the most beautiful thing I could ever want or dream of. The hearts I see remind me of His heart, and they make me want to give Him more of mine. So if you start seeing hearts too, remember they just might be God’s love notes to you!

(Julie Mullen lives in Katy, Texas. She is a free-lance writer who works in the field of education with middle school students.)