confessions [of a Mel] part.14.

 Sometimes I think I'm getting too sensitive.

Which is weird... because I used to feel too *stoic*.

Life is an ever shifting series of ebb and flow.

Circumstances wash over our heart and make it smooth as a river stone... either softened or hard.

After years of working with troubled youth (as an arts director/mentor).

My heart had broken. stretched. grown. burned out. repeat.

Sometimes it seemed safer to turn to stone.

 We think it's better to not feel - than to risk the pain being real.

Sometimes it's a temporary 'coping' device.

We lock our heart away from the storms to keep it safe.

But sometimes we forget where we put that key.

We forget what it's like to feel...

to risk...

to love...

to lose...

In seeking to free ourselves from heartache, we actually create a prison instead - called apathy.

At least, that was the rocky path I found myself on in the past.

I started not to care.

Nothing 'phased' me.

Nothing shocked me.

Nothing moved me.

It's a dark place to be, friends.

But now, I'm seeing the Light.

So like I said, when I think I'm getting too 'sensitive' - you know it's a big deal.

It hurts sometimes, but it's real.

 I feel.

I almost feel it too much... the griefs, the joys, the love, the hate.

I don't know how God's heart can hold these things in perfect tension: witnessing the appalling horrors that fill this earth - and the dazzling beauty of it all too.

But what I do know is this.

I want to be in the Light.

It takes more strength to feel, than to be a stone.

More power to love, than to hate.

More grace to forgive, than to resent.

More love to encourage, than to criticise.

I want to keep getting softer in my 'old age'.

So that even if my bones get brittle, my heart still beats with love.

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In memory of Laurie.

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Mel