Seeking a Soft Heart

Recently I met with a new friend over lattes at my local coffee shop. We chatted more than we sipped as we explored who God is and what it means to live out a life of faith. I was midway into a frothy latte mustache when she surprised me with a question. “Will you tell me about your Year of Yes?” Suddenly feeling very sober, I softly placed my mug back on the table. In the moments that followed I began to unwrap for her the inner workings of this season.

I have had a very quiet interval on my blog this year. In January of 2015 I naively declared the Year of Yes for my life, and hoped it would translate seamlessly to my blog. It has not been so.

This year of yes has not been an experience for me that is easily shared. It has encompassed a deep work by God in my inmost places. I do believe it will bring much fruit in the next season, but for now my roots are driving deeper and deeper to find life and wholeness.

God is showing me the repercussions of having a hardened heart.

If you know me at all you probably would not say that I have a hard heart. But truthfully, how do we really know the inner struggles of one another unless we share them? What does that mean anyway? Our hearts become hardened when we are hurt by someone or circumstances and we try to control how much pain we will feel by making decisions for ourselves. If you have found yourself saying things like “I won’t allow them to hurt me again” or “this doesn’t really matter that much” then you know what it means to harden your heart a little at a time. Even distractions that we embrace to soften the pain can harden our hearts. I must note here that this is a separate issue from forgiveness. Forgiveness must come first if the hurt involves another person, but forgiveness alone does not protect us from hardening our hearts.

Essentially, anytime we take the control from God and choose to take care of ourselves instead we are at risk of a hardened heart. We were not meant to be in control. That’s God’s place. We cannot be little gods for our lives and expect to have a soft heart before him. He will not share the throne of our hearts with him.

My year of yes has been this: yes to pain. Yes to hurting and yes to letting God be enough. Yes to allowing others to walk in and out of the gates of my heart with their muddy boots even if it is scary. Yes to letting others love me in my brokenness. Yes to a soft and supple heart.

This yes has come slowly.

I am grateful for a God who pursues me in my brokenness. He got my attention through his silence. I could not figure out the source of my inner numbness. I prayed, I forgave, I sought God, but still this silence prevailed. Then, through the words of a wise friend, he showed me the answer. I had walled up my heart against pain.

How could I hear him if I had hardened the heart he gave me? We cannot choose who gets in and out of the walls we build. Walls are walls.

When we place that very first brick into the mortar of pain, his light dims ever so slightly in our hearts. With each brick we set, his voice grows more quiet.

I cannot do life on those terms anymore. I have chosen, with his help, to feel the pain and have him with me. I would rather walk in grief and sense his presence than to be pain-free.

(There is, however, a difference between walling up your heart and guarding it. The scriptures teach us to guard our hearts and speaks to being cautious about what we allow to influence us. It is about wisdom. Walling up your heart is more about an action resulting from the fear of being hurt.)

I am grateful for the gifts God has given me this summer. They are like breadcrumbs leading me back to his goodness. Worship always gets me home.

He has never left me. I just can’t hear him if I choose to shut out the pain. This is an exchange I am unwilling to make. God help not to make this exchange anymore.

So,

that is my Year of Yes dear sweet friend. Thank you for asking. The good news? It is not over yet.

A new season is on the horizon and I am running into the light.

Yes.

Psalm 51:17 ~”My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise.”

Psalm 139:23,24 ~” Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”