When Your Heart Needs A Day

Photo by Alex BDNR on Unsplash

I am all up in my feelings this week. I’m missing my mother, feeling sad over lost relationships, handling how I think about people I love and care about turning their backs on Jesus, and I am living in a tenderness I didn’t need today.

I’m a big feeler, and in recent years, it seems I’m a big crier too. Nothing slaps you back to reality like crying in public. You quickly find out who's walking through their issues with grace and those who aren’t by the way they respond to your tears. Or not. So, that’s fun.

Healing from trauma feels especially sacred to me these days. It requires honesty, intentional work, clear boundaries, and the courage to uphold them. It also calls for compassion, both for ourselves and others. Not everyone can extend that kind of grace, even inwardly.

We’re each doing the best we can with what we carry.

This is why community matters so much. We do not need to carry our burdens alone. I recall a phone conversation with an elderly man years ago. He was sharing how difficult it was to keep up with his lawn. I asked him if his church could have its youth group tend to it as a service project. He responded that his church didn’t do things like that. He refused to even ask his church about it. Pride was in his way. I couldn’t believe it. He had been a faithful attender, tither, giver, as had his wife for decades. And you mean to tell me his church couldn’t mow his lawn, not even a single time?

What kind of community and church is that? A legalistic one.