I want to be like toilet paper. Well, not just any toilet paper. Charmin. I want to be like Charmin toilet paper.
Okay, I know that your mind is instantly going to why I SHOULDN’T want to be like toilet paper. I can hear you snickering….:-) Stop that and hear me out.
Strong and soft is Charmin’s motto. THAT’S why I want to be like toilet paper.
I remember hysterically crying years ago after a heartbreaking experience and asking a friend, “How many times can a heart break before it starts getting hard?” That was my biggest fear. A stone cold, rock hard heart that could no longer be penetrated by love, unable to respond softly. A heart still beating, but closed off from being touched by anything or anyone. I was afraid that when my shattered pieces were painstakingly glued back together that the result would be a damaged, callused, unfeeling heart. Never the same as how it had been before.
I didn’t know the answer to that question at the time. Not exactly, any way. I had to live it out. Live through it. Find out as I went along.
It wasn’t the first or the last crushing experience I have gone through. It was only one in a series over the span of a lifetime. But it represented every other time of wondering, what will happen to my heart this time?
When my son Mitchell died, I remember people being amazed at how “strong” I was. They didn’t see how I cried myself to sleep at night. How I rocked for hours in a my rocking chair with Blake, my two-year-old, in my lap, tears streaming down my face. They didn’t know that I’d go in my closet where my young children couldn’t hear me and scream and sob to the point of gagging.
I felt anything but strong. I didn’t care about being strong at that point. But I did care about being soft. Of not letting my heart harden from the pain I was sure I couldn’t endure.
So how does a heart survive, and not just survive, but thrive? How does it come through heartache and grief stronger, yet softer than before?
Some would say that putting a wall around your heart, letting it harden so it won’t be hurt again, is the answer. They would argue that that is being strong.
I couldn’t disagree more. That isn’t strength. That is cowardice. That is hiding. That is a cop out. The easy way out. That is a response driven by fear. It obviously takes softness out of the picture, but it also robs a person of true strength. It’s an artificial shell of protection that at some point will shatter completely.
But if that way doesn’t work because it’s fear-induced, what is its antithesis? How do I respond to the exact same difficult experience and have a result that produces both true strength and a soft heart?
TRUST.
Not trust in our own resources or our ability to figure it all out. More often than not, circumstances and struggles are beyond our capabilities to understand or deal with on our own.
TRUST IN GOD.
Trusting that He truly loves me. Trusting that He truly has a plan. That He is truly omniscient and omnipotent and true to His word. That He sees the big picture, the future, the ultimate ending and is working toward that.
Trusting is more than just hoping. It’s a “just knowing”. It’s based on the truth of what He promises in His word and the faithfulness that He’s shown every single time in my life. It’s just knowing even when I can’t see exactly what He’s doing for a little while. It’s just knowing that every circumstance has a distinct and deliberate purpose and looking for those things along the way, during the waiting.
Trust produces both strength and softness. It doesn’t allow a crust to form around my heart. It builds a strength from the inside out and at the same time keeps my heart pliable, teachable, lovable.
Trust in Jesus. It’s the absolute key. Think I’ll go and claim this again today…
You’ll never look at toilet paper the same way again, will you? 🙂
James 1:2-3 – Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.
Romans 8:28 – And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
Psalm 46:10 – He says, “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”
