Tender heart

Children’s toys, like fashion, see passing of trends, must haves and have nots. Coveting starts at an early age; the desire to possess that one thing meant to fill us up with utter contentment. Mine was a Cabbage Patch doll. Four to be exact.  I remember the vacillation between hope and despair as my grandparents delivered sad news from the Toy Store of the last doll being sold to another family. There must be another one in the city....and alas, came Leona. I was pleased as punch. Not wanting. She had me at hello, or at least her autographed behind did.

With the new season, came a new fad of plush animals named “Care Bears”.  I was a loyal fan of the show at age six and a more loyal owner to my first bear, Tender heart. She/He was the bear that didn’t really “do” anything, or so I thought. At six, even for a girl, I was sold on action and results, not a mere feeling.

As a grown woman the whole concept of a “tender heart” means much to me now. I should know as I keep one caged behind bars and several pad locks. Protected. Stifled. It, like yours, has been damaged, and bruised. I try nursing it back to health, coddling it, babying it, only to have it again at least jabbed at a little, tussled, ruffled, and back in to its hiding place it goes.

I’ve been reading a lot lately about left brain/right brain tendencies. It’s amazing that there is a dominant side of the brain that is directly connected to our emotions. The amygdale, or “pleasure centre” of the brain, is responsible for communicating our feelings about events that are happening in our lives. Our left hemisphere or more logical, rational, “thinking side” is quite separate from our feelings. The theory is if an individual has a tendency to live their lives out of one hemisphere, the result is more often than not, neuroses; be it depression or anxiety.  The key, the experts say, is integrating the two sides to exist somewhere in the middle, in the “flow”. Exhausted yet?  I am.

The thing is I want to live my life out of my heart.  I’m tired of the analyzing, and caution, and hesitancy.  I love adventure and consider myself to be a somewhat spontaneous person, but over the years, it seems my left brain has taken control. It’s aiming to keep me safe and protected, I know, and it’s needed, but so too is the tender heart that is longing to be freed.  Isn’t yours? What are your tendencies? And, what have you done with your tender heart?

God asks us to give it up, to unlock the padlock, to open the cage and vulnerably give it to Him.       “…Give me your hearts…”  (Joel 2:12) I don’t know about you, but I already feel “in the flow” just thinking about that.  For what better place to bring our hearts, than the very Creator who gave it it’s beat. Who knows its every desire. Who hears its every longing. And I trust that the same God who broke bed for his disciples, who washed their feet, who called the little children, and who turned his cheek on a wooden cross, knows a little something about a tender heart, and can certainly care for mine.

“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you;  I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” Ezekiel 36:26-27