Nurture My Heart Soft

Could it be that this winter’s recent string of frozen days is about to break?  Warming temps….sunny breaks….feels promising!  Although we cannot be certain exactly when the season’s grip will release, the anticipation alone warms my soul.  At some point, we know this winter will melt into spring.  However, what about the threat of freezing for my heart?  Any chance that I might live beyond that propensity?  How great it would be for my heart to feign freezing — hardening — no matter the season.

This desire swells for me as I ponder our Selah value:  We relate to God with receptive hearts and minds, nurtured in the way of Christ.

Receptive sounds opposite of frozen.  Somehow receptivity seems always at risk for icing over, especially those areas with which I disagree, have had a negative experience, been hurt, don’t understand, just don’t like it, feel I deserve something, am overly familiar.  Besetting hardness appears ready and prompt and almost normal, and sometimes even encouraged and yet knowing that strikes me as painfully as my frigid pant legs hit the back of my legs on winter walks.

Rather than this value describing an absolute, a what is, this value stirs words of desire — desire whispering a prayer on chilled breath:

“O Christ, nurture my heart soft….Reclaim to me your warming hearth….Rekindle my openness by love for love.”

So be it.