Throwing away lies and burdens

"Never doubt that there are words that can cut right through stone." So writes Ann Voskamp in her post today.

That is surely true. Our daughter, Sara, has had to deal with words like that, being one of the few African American girls in her school. It is a constant battle to keep her from ingesting those stupid comments from other girls in her third grade classes.

She stands up for herself pretty well, but it is hard for her not to start wondering if some of those negative appraisals might be true.

Now she and her two brothers are getting glasses. She dreads the comments she will inevitably get. "Not good enough to be in our group."

My job and that of her mother, Colleen, is to help her "heave the stones off," to use Ann's words. Ann adds,

The first tactic of the enemy is always to distort your identity.

Ann and other women from her church carried the stones, and the words written on them, like "not enough," and hurled them into the church pond.

And we will help each other throw away the lies and the burdens and the weights that make us a heart of stone and alone.

Sara is a beautiful, kind child; unselfish, with a wonderful imagination. Her imagination is like that of no other person I have ever known. She can come home and play for long periods of time with the chickens, or with her cat. When she was an infant and toddler she could entertain herself for hours playing with toys.

Ann writes,

maybe your heart of late seems more wall than warm, your arms seem crossed more into a shield than open like a shelter.

Maybe you heart has thickened into this long, scared callous — and you’ve numbed yourself to getting hurt ever again by the friendship of women. And you’ll smile and you’ll laugh and you’ll nod — but you haven’t been letting anyone get too close.

Maybe you haven’t really been trusting and maybe you haven’t really been sharing and maybe you haven’t really let anyone in — not really in.

Maybe you’ve let your heart go a bit deaf to what it really needs — because you don’t want to know how alone you really feel?

By the way, the same applies to boys as to girls. In fact, I see the shutting down more in my boys than in Sara.