That old saying "Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me." is such a lie. You can even add actions, secrets, really anything in the place of words, because it all hurts.
I have experienced a lot of heartbreak as many of you who read my blog may have experienced as well. Some of my heartbreaks were so severe that I closed my heart completely. Other heartbreaks that I have experienced just allowed my to put up a wall around my heart brick by brick where over time my heart was closed off. When you build a wall around your heart brick by brick it takes a little while to actually enclose your heart. So there is always a chance that as one brick goes up one comes down. Walls that go up immediately are there to stay and only walls that Christ can break down. Walls that go up over a period of time, are hard to tear down, but with love and affection by the person we are protecting our hearts from they can begin to pry the bricks off. It takes a lot of effort for that person to tear down those walls, but eventually they do come down.
So what do you do when you build walls, take them down, turn around and build walls and take them down. Eventually you stop taking the bricks down and keeping them in place, and over time you just stop taking bricks down because that person continually keeps hurting you either in the same way or different ways, and it is tiring building walls all the time. So much easier to keep one wall up and build another brick. Over time you will find that your heart is completely blocked off and no amount of anything will cause you to begin tearing down that wall. It gets to the place where Christ is the only one who can break that wall down, and once that wall is broken down the heart that has been enclosed for days, months, years has withered and dried.
Why do we build walls around our hearts? We build walls around our hearts when people we love continually hurt us by their lies and secrets. When those lies and secrets become exposed we use them to build bricks, and this begins the process of building walls. In the bible it tells us to guard our hearts. To be honest I am tired of building bricks to protect my heart. I don't know about you, but building breaks every other day is tiring.
"And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh." Ezekiel 36:26
Why do I tell you this, because as long as our hearts have a wall around them, nothing can penetrate it. Gods word needs to penetrate our hearts in order for us to be effective in the world, in our marriage and in our families. As long as we have this wall, Gods word can't penetrate. Yes the Bible tells us to guard our hearts, but not in the way where we block out the ability to love and be loved.
Proverbs 4:23 "Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life."
If we are not suppose to be building walls around our hearts to protect them, then what do we do to protect our hearts? Awesome question. it was one that I was asking last night. I found myself looking at the book of Philippians and found this passage:
"And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." Philippians 4:7
Let me encourage you with this: If you have a wall completely around your heart, begin to ask Christ to tear down. If in the process you find that your hear is hard, ask God to give you a new heart. If you are beginning to build bricks STOP! Use the peace of God to protect your heart instead of bricks. Let Gods word begin to penetrate your heart, and heal what has been hardened.
Again, if you are in a place where you are just wanting to call it quits, allow God to minister to you, and seek good solid christian counselors to counsel you. Begin to allow God to work in your heart, and begin seeing your heart changed.
