So where do I begin this blog today? Do I speak from my heart? Do I speak from emotion? Or maybe I speak from both my heart and emotion? So join me as I write this blog and see where the words flow. Before I begin I want to open in prayer:
Dear Father, You see the hurt I am feeling today and the hurt that I have experienced in the past. You see where I have placed up a wall around my heart, and you see where that wall has fallen. Father as I write today's blog, wether it be from emotion, or from my heart I ask that those that have experienced heartbreak who read my blog, will also experience healing of those walls that they have placed around either all around their heart or just in places. For those who are experiencing hearts that are completely overwhelmed by hurts I ask that you begin to bring healing. Let my words be a reflection of your love for us. In Jesus name I pray Amen!
Wow what a night and what a day! Talk about the ways in which one person can hurt another and never know in what way we are doing so. That old saying "Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me." is such a lie. You can even add actions, secrets, really anything in the place of words, because it all hurts.
Last night my night consisted of a thunder storm that brought heavy rain, loud claps of thunder, and the brightest lighting I have ever seen. It also consisted of secrets, and lies. Not sure what I was scared of most, the thunder storm or the secrets and lies. I have experienced a lot of heartbreak as many of you who read my blog may have experienced as well. Some of my heartbreaks were so severe that I closed my heart completely. Other heartbreaks that I have experienced just allowed my to put up a wall around my heart brick by brick where over time my heart was closed off. When you build a wall around your heart brick by brick it takes a little while to actually enclose your heart. So there is always a chance that as one brick goes up one comes down. Walls that go up immediately are there to stay and only walls that Christ can break down. Walls that go up over a period of time, are hard to tear down, but with love and affection by the person we are protecting our hearts from they can begin to pry the bricks off. It takes a lot of effort for that person to tear down those walls, but eventually they do come down. Well what do you do when you build walls, take them down, turn around and build walls and take them down. Eventually you stop taking the bricks down and keeping them in place, and over time you just stop taking bricks down because that person continually keeps hurting you either in the same way or different ways, and it is tiring building walls all the time. So much easier to keep one wall up and build another brick. Over time you will find that your heart is completely blocked off and no amount of anything will cause you to begin tearing down that wall. It gets to the place where Christ is the only one who can break that wall down, and once that wall is broken down the heart that has been enclosed for days, months, years has withered and dried.
Why do we build walls around our hearts? We build walls around our hearts when people we love continually hurt us by their lies and secrets. When those lies and secrets become exposed we use them to build bricks, and this begins the process of building walls. In the bible it tells us to guard our hearts. To be honest I am tired of building bricks to protect my heart. I don't know about you, but building breaks every other day is tiring.
Three years ago my husband and I went up to the Ranch of Hope where we did 5 days of intensive marriage counseling. During that five days, God gave me a new heart. I am serious when I say God gave me a new heart. It was an amazing day! Those in the room consisted of our counselor, myself and my husband. We were talking about hurts from the past, and current hurts, when our counselor asked if he could pray, and move out of the way so the Christ could begin to do His thing. We of course said yes. Let me back up, I did not want to be there, I had no desire in making this work, my only desire was to be able to say we tried and did everything we could possibly do to make our marriage work and after this long horrid week we would go our separate ways. Now that was my intention and motive. God had other ideas! On this particular day, I was sitting on the couch with my husband beside me and our counselor in front of us, nearly touching our knees. Our counselor began to pray, and invited Christ to take His place. This is when the transformation of my heart began. I could see my heart that was in me, it was black and hard as stone, and God took that and replaced it with a heart that was pink, and full of life. I know this sounds crazy, but it happened. I was transformed at that moment and my heart was made new. See I had just totally closed of my heart, where life could not get into it. In order for life to begin penetrating my soul, I had to be given a new heart. I was also given this passage of scripture that day :
"And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh." Ezekiel 36:26
Why do I tell you this, because as long as our hearts have a wall around them, nothing can penetrate it. Gods word needs to penetrate our hearts in order for us to be effective in the world, in our marriage and in our families. As long as we have this wall, Gods word can't penetrate. Yes the bible tells us to guard our hearts, but not in the way where we block out the ability to love and be loved.
Proverbs 4:23 "Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life."
If we are not suppose to be building walls around our hearts to protect them, then what do we do to protect our hearts? Awesome question. it was one that I was asking last night. I found myself looking at the book of Philippians and found this passage:
"And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." Philippians 4:7
Wow! So let me put this into my perspective...A few weeks ago I suspected my husband was mot telling me the truth about something, but I let it go thinking okay not a big deal I am overreacting. The other night my husband was acting very strangely, it appeared as if he were hiding something from me, and when I was watching what he was doing it looked a little put off. Well last night the truth was found out. I will let you know that this is not one of those "big sins", but it is a sin no less. I have said in the past a sin is a sin no matter the sin. I was hurt because once again, he has lied to me, and was hiding this from me. So instead of choosing to build a brick to begin to protect my heart, I am going to allow the peace of God to protect my heart for me. No more brick building for me. I will not allow the heart that was given to me 3 years ago, to become black and hard as stone, because of one man's decision to cause me heartbreak. No my marriage is far from perfect, we have our problems and we have our struggles. I stay mad, and he tries to act as nothing is wrong, but I am not going to allow this to cause me to build a wall. People who think marriage is perfect and without heartache are totally dead wrong. We are even told in the bible that those who are married :will have trouble in this world (1Corinthians 7:28), what we do with those troubles is our own choice.
Let me encourage you with this: If you have a wall completely around your heart, begin to ask Christ to tear down. If in the process you find that your hear is hard, ask God to give you a new heart. If you are beginning to build bricks STOP! Use the peace of God to protect your heart instead of bricks. Let Gods word begin to penetrate your heart, and heal what has been hardened.
Again, if you are in a place where you are just wanting to call it quits, allow God to minister to you, and seek good solid christian counselors to counsel you. Begin to allow God to work in your heart, and begin seeing your heart changed, and then your marriage.
