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John Hembree

An Everyday Expression of Hope and Its Potential

An Everyday Expression of Hope 

The Naked Heart (A Softening)

March 3, 2015 by John Hembree 2 Comments

Mouse in a handThere was a gathering at our house on the evening following my mother’s funeral in April of 2012.

After the service a collective group of people had gathered; friends, family, neighbors who are more like family, and there was food, lots of food.

You can always count on the fact, that if someone passes away in the south, food will be involved.

And that is the way it should be.

Toward the end of the evening, I was given a book entitled, One Thousand Gifts, by Ann Voskamp.

My friend Cynthia had suggested I read it and was giving me her copy.

But before she left she read us a passage where the author was writing about the emotions of watching her young daughter grow up.

The end of the passage read like this.

“Why does time snatch away a heart I don’t think mine can beat without? Why do we all have to grow old? Why do we have to keep saying good-bye?”

We often go through seasons in our lives where the heart is more sensitive than at other times.

Not sensitive as in crying, sorrow and clinging to people who have now passed on.

But sensitive to matters of the heart.

And at times, words are not needed nor involved.

The heart does not need language, it has one all it’s own.

Do you have people in your life that you just know there is something special between you?

Something deeper than surface interaction.

I like to use the phrase “magical connection”.

Call it whatever you want, but it is the special bond between God and man and human to human, person to person.

A quote I was given earlier this evening says this, “There was never any heart truly great and generous, that wasn’t also tender and compassionate.” Robert Frost

Continue through this week by looking for and building a more, softer you.

Hard people are usually scared people, who either do not like themselves and think you won’t either, or, do not like themselves and are not secure enough to say to those around them, “Here I am, warts and all.”

The toughest of people, especially men, can not fulfill their God given mission on earth with a hard heart and an exterior of steel that protects a heart of stone.

Christ was gentle, not weak.

And his heart was soft and wide open.

john

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Comments

  1. Patricia DeStefano says

    March 4, 2015 at 1:24 pm

    This touched my heart….Needed this today. Thanks.

    Reply
  2. Robert Burgess says

    March 4, 2015 at 1:44 pm

    I have often wondered why people, especially men, walk around with such a hard exterior. I know that is for their own protection from being really seen, thus vulnerable, and opened to possible hurt. I also know that hurt people, hurt people and many times all they need is a naked hearted person to show understanding, tolerance, and love. The world needs more “soft” people!

    Reply

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