It is hard to have a tender heart, when it seems the world is out to misunderstand you, when you don’t fit anywhere, even with other believers, when people like you or don’t like you based on what you DO instead of who you are. It is hard to be childlike enough to walk humbly with God who asks this tenderness of you when it is easier to keep your walls up and welcome cynicism and suspicion where trust should be. It is hard to be small and build another up whose is living the way you know you should have lived and you didn’t. It is hard to confess and be humble and seek the face of the One who gentles you sometimes through the acknowledgement of your own sin through His Life lived out.
But it is harder to be angry, harder to live with your chin tucked and your guard up, ready to lash out at anyone who backs you into a corner. It is harder, because the angrier you are and the more unyielding you become, the bigger your corner gets until the whole world is there pushing you into it and you feel you have to be big enough to fill it, when you just simply want to walk out there, where everyone else is just living and being and not really noticing you in the corner. It is harder to be dead when you could be alive. It is harder to hate and to envy and to judge when you could simply love.
God give us tender hearts, in spite of our hardness.
It IS hard to be tender. It is not my default at all, so for me, tenderness is harder, by far. It takes Christ making me into something new. I would otherwise choose the hard shell of self-protection.
Kelly I’m so glad I found this, and sad we didnt really get to connect at the Lovely Workshop . . . hope you’re well!!
This is really stunning writing about profound ideas…please don’t doubt your ability to write. You express yourself in a beautiful and unique way. Lovely!!!
It is harder to be dead when you could be alive. It is harder to hate and to envy and to judge when you could simply love.
God give us tender hearts, in spite of our hardness.
I did get tears reading this 🙁
Thanks