I was responding to his alter call asking if anyone wanted to respond to Jesus. "Say yes to Jesus and come on," he said to the church. So, I did.

"Can't you hear it?" I wanted to say when he asked me why I had come forward.

I really thought it was loud enough the whole church could hear it.

Instead, I whispered, "I don't know."

He's a good daddy and he told me we would keep talking more about it. And we would for several months afterwards. 

I wondered if Cassie's heart had beat just as loud when she went forward down the aisle a few weeks before I had. I wished I could have borrowed some of her confidence. Her confidence had always been a little bit ahead of mine. She always seemed to find her words a little bit before me.

But I knew even at that young age that this was between me and the Lord. This was about that beating heart working it out and connecting with my mind and my words.

Later the next spring, I walked that same aisle, responding to the same invitation, "Say yes to Jesus and come on" he said to the church. So again, I did. I walked down the same aisle, my same heart was beating just as loudly, believing so deeply, and this time connecting so proudly to the words I was able to confidently look into my daddy's eyes and say, " I want to be a Christian. I believe in Jesus."

"Faith the size of a mustard seed" (Matthew 17:20), for me started not with my baptism, or even my prayer to become a Christian. It started with my heart beating so loudly even before I had the words to explain it. 

My faith and I walked down another aisle towards my daddy ten years later. I stood just outside the sanctuary doors listening to my dad explain to over 600 wedding guests how Kyle and I were choosing to model our ceremony after a First Century wedding celebration. I listened as he explained how when the time was just right, after all the preparations were in place, the father of the bridegroom would look at the groom and tell him, "the time has come, go get your bride". The groom would ride through town, through much fanfare and go get his bride and bring her back for the wedding celebrations. At that point in the ceremony, my dad looked at Kyle at the front of the church, and said "Kyle, the time has come, go get your bride." 

As Kyle marched down the aisle towards me, my heart was beating just as loud as that day when I was five and I felt that mustard seed in my heart. He threw open the doors at the end of the aisle and there, my beating heart and I were waiting. And together we walked down the aisle towards my daddy, and when I got to the front, my dad didn't have to ask why I was there. And I didn't have to ask "Can't you hear it?" Everyone already knew why I was there. Everyone could hear my beating faith. My resounding and confident "I do" left no question that my mustard seed had grown. It was evident to all.

There was another time that my beating mustard seed was louder than my words. Fischer's birthday surprised all of us. It was my third delivery, and we expected it to be as smooth as the first two. But it wasn't. 

My heart started beating loudly the night before. I could hear it loudly again. I didn't have the words again. After we checked in that morning for a scheduled induction and got monitors set up, Fischer's heart rate was sleepy. We watched it all morning and it continued to stay pretty slow. 

My own heart was still beating so loudly. I wanted to ask the nurse, "Can't you hear it? Isn't it enough? Can Fischer borrow some of my confidence today?"

A few hours later, my doctor came in to break my water and Fischer's heart rate plummeted dangerously low. Too low. And my own heart beat even louder. It was so loud, I almost couldn't hear the doctor's instruction or the nurse. 

What I could hear, as they rolled me side to side (trying to wake Fischer up) was my husband's voice praying over me, that beating-heart-faith-decision I had made six years earlier. And I heard that mustard seed reminding me who made life, from that very first heartbeat decision I had made seventeen years earlier. 

And then, when I was rolled into the operating room, and Fischer's monitor was hooked up to the machine, I heard the loud, beautiful beats of my baby's heart beating back up to a normal rate, and I heard it again.... the sound of faith the size of a beating heart.

Faith is the size of a mustard seed because God is bigger.

Faith sounds like a beating heart because God is a megaphone.

Faith responds to an invitation because it's not about me, it's about Him.

Thump.

Thump.

Beat. 

Beat.

"Can't you hear it?"