Lie About a Cry This Instant!

Lie About a Cry

“So, did you cry?!”

The question is typically asked of me by another woman after a poignant event of some kind (movie, wedding, song, play, concert, speech, or similar such emotional experience).

I don’t feel quite right stating the truth. “No, I didn’t” is just such a harsh response, particularly as my friend looks at me through weepy, puppy dog eyes.

But I also don’t feel comfortable telling a flat-out lie. After all, my makeup remains perfectly in tact and my unclenched hand produces no wadded-up tissue.

Instead, I’ve found peace with my avoidance of a response. When I answer, “Oh, yeah. That was amazing,” I actually can rest well that night. I figure that the nano-second when my eyes welled up is equivalent to most women’s endless, open sobbing.

Yes, it takes a lot to move me. But no, I’m really not cold-hearted. I just have a heart I’m learning to tend to.

I once mistook it to be a stepping stone in the garden of life – something I’d use, but not think twice about on my way to observing the roses. Now I get it … my heart is actually the soil in that garden. Soil takes a whole lot more TLC than a stone does.

If I want my heart to experience beautiful things – to grow incredible flowers - I must tend to it. I must guard and protect it. I must water it and nurture it. I must give it attention, as well as time and space. I must treat it forever gently.

In what state is the soil of your heart today? Hard, cracked, and neglected? Or soft, moldable, and brimming with life? Do you like the flowers your garden is producing? Is it a place that welcomes visitors and bids them to stay?

Whenever our heart needs tending, we’ve got a Gardener eager to step in and nurture it back to life. All we need to do is ask. But we must be prepared … He just might install a sprinkler system like He has for the friends with whom I keep seeing movies.

“Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.” Proverbs 4:23

"I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.” – Jesus (John 15:1)