The world is filled with broken hearts. Shattered hearts. Hearts filled with more holes than wholeness. Hearts waiting to be made new. Beating hearts, breaking hearts, broken hearts, we keep on living. Some hearts are heavy, while some are often light. Some strung along, others saddened or too far gone. We take others hearts into our hands at the moment we see them. What will we do with their hearts? Are we transforming them and allowing ourselves to grow in love by loving them? This is perhaps why we so often hurt our families or those we deeply love the most… because we carry their hearts for so long, we easily can damage them.
When a woman has been damaged to the point of no longer feeling safe with anyone else but herself, she creates a shell around her heart. A type of armor, and feels the need to fight her own battles. She takes the weight upon her shoulders that was never meant to be there. She often can become demanding, cold, heartless, and defensive. She trades in her tenderness and nurturing heart for the need to “be better,” the need to “be perfect,” to “be in control,” and to to be “successful” because she, in her own womanhood, found that her femininity alone wasn’t enough. She begins to take on the role of both woman AND man because there is no man in her life to love and support her, to nurture her growth in her femininity. She feels the need to become her own protector and provider. But she cannot be “full man” and “full woman.” A relationship is not meant to be a guessing game. It is meant to be clear and concise. If there is no communication, there is no clarity.
You do not deserve to spend your life guessing, pulling teeth, and feeling guilty about caring for your partner. If a man truly loves you and wants what’s best for you, he will be clear. He will be clear with his intentions, clear with his thoughts, and clear about the direction he intends to lead you because you were never meant to be led astray by the person who is meant to lead you closest to heaven. Do not let a man waste your time. Do not let yourself waste his time either. Be clear, be authentic, stand firm in who you are, know your destination and have a direction.
Love isn’t stagnant. It always points to something greater. Who do we aspire to be in order to become “full woman”? The strength of a woman is something that is found inside of her. It reveals itself and is pulled out in times of trial. The darkest times reveal the deepest parts of her soul and of her heart. She is not wavered though she may find herself in the midst of deep sorrow. The sorrow does not drown her. Women are bearers. Bearers of gifts, bearers of wisdom, of love, of goodness. Bearers of beauty, and bearers of human life itself. The heart of a woman magnifies the hearts of others as she fully immerses herself in their presence, deeply seeking to know and understand the heart of the other. She falls in love with the heart of every human life before her. Their personhood astounds her. God created them and presented to her the gift of their life. She welcomes this gift. She recognizes it as gift. The weight of the world may weigh on her but it does not crush her strong heart, since the joy of the Lord is her strength, and the joy of the Lord is constant. She, too, finds her peace and joy in the Lord, that is why others cannot take it away from her. She is not wavered by the things of the world and does not let the external trials or anxieties enter her at her deepest core and destroy the peace that is within her.
It is only when she ceases to depend her life on God and no longer places in his hands the fullness of her heart, that she becomes frail. Fragile heart, the world breaks. The world is harsh and often abusive, and we often are breakable people, too often with fragile hearts fashioned at the core of our humanity. We depend on no one but ourselves and lack empathy for others. Forgetting to recognize the beautiful humanity of the human soul in front of us, we often pass them by, unchanged, unmoved, unheard. Fragile hearts still have much power to impact. We leave our footprints and fingerprints all over the earth. What will we mold in the end? What will be left changed by us? What will we impact? Who will we love?
So how do we bring this love wherever we go? How do we simplify something that seems so difficult? Always be willing to fall in love with the heart of the person that is before you. Christ lives within their heart and has carefully created a beautiful plan for their life. He wants you to share in their life… to rejoice in their life, that they are living… that they are human. His greatest creation. Fall in love with their heart because that is the only life they will ever live. Wherever they are, mentally, physically, spiritually… they are with You. And in that moment, you have the ability to leave them wherever they are, or leave them closer to goodness. Simply and sweetly love them, and they will discover more deeply their humanity. Love is the most beautiful thing you can grace their life with. The human heart waits to be loved. Will their heart be loved by you?