Artwork by Ryan McCabe. Click on image to browse through and support his amazing work.
It’s so easy in times of tragedy, grief or injustice to become calloused and hard. Our hearts desperately endeavor to stall any more trauma from entering in. We clench up and frantically attempt to protect ourselves, just the thought of anymore pain being too much to consider. So stoicism beckons and too often we partake in the shallow promise of self protection.
A soft heart seems the weaker or lesser road. Softness evokes defeat in our day and age. It can be easily perceived as lacking courage or resolve. But a heart that is tender and warm, and responsive is far from weak. This is a heart that truly FEELS, that embraces and opens wide(r), even as pain attempts to evict hope in ones chest. This seems impossible in the midst of grief, but in reality, this is exactly what our hearts were designed to do.
You can be soft in your heart and be nowhere near apathetic in your actions.
You can be tender in your response towards grief and not passive in convictions.
You can be a weeping, crying mess whilst staring numbness in the face and demanding it fall in line.
Jesus is the only one who has produced any semblance of this in my journey. He is perfect love, and only he has truly put the fears of my heart in their place. Being brash and brazen is of no appeal to him. Jesus has no vested interested in me or you fighting the battles of our generation with the so called strength of this day and age.
Let the world see us weep in response to the suffering of our neighbours. Let the world be confronted by our impassioned cries for justice that's instigated by our words and actions. Let us test the validity of: the meek shall inherit the earth.
Open your heart to him. Not religion, not an institution or an ideology. But to the person who weeps, grieves and suffers but is never defeated.
Ezekiel 36:26
And I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart.