Breaking Down the Walls

“Follow your heart, but be quiet for a while first.

Ask questions, then feel the answer.

Learn to trust your heart.”

Over the years, I have built walls of steel around my heart. I have questioned whether I have truly loved anyone, because I've been able to walk away from every relationship I've ever had with my heart relatively in tact. I've been hurt, but I've always been the one to leave it all behind. Sometimes, I realized the feelings weren't strong enough and other times, it's because I felt I owed it to myself not to allow myself to be treated the way I was being treated. But every time, it was by my own accord. I've often wondered if that's healthy. I don't regret walking away from any relationship (except for maybe the length of time it took me to walk away), but I often wonder that if in the process, the walls are now so high that it's almost impossible for me to let someone in so completely. When do you know whether it's best to follow your heart or your head? When do you decide to set down the fear of vulnerability and the need for control to dive in head first? When do you do away with your cynicism of mankind and relationships in general that has been built up for years and search for, then allow, the love you once believed was possible? While I don't know the answers to these questions, I am beginning to realize that what has happened in the past is not the future...and while I should keep a sense of reality and rationality, God does have a plan for me. By continuing to live behind the barriers, I'm limiting the possibilities He's trying to place before me. Breaking down the walls is a huge step outside my comfort zone, but I'm willing to do so knowing that He is in control.

It is a glorious thing to know that your Father God makes no mistakes in directing or permitting that which crosses the path of your life. It is the glory of God to conceal a matter. It is our glory to trust him, no matter what.
- Joni Eareckson Tada -

**originally posted December 9, 2007