The Ache of the Tenderhearted

I have this boy, he's 15.  He's a child who came well after my others; he is my gift of God to be here long after the others had flown the coop.  Everyone who meets him says that there is something special about him, something different.  I know what they see in him.  I "get" the difference.  He's one of the tenderhearted.  There are those of us, in this life, who can sense and feel the joy, the pain, the angst of others.  We are the tenderhearted.  My boy, he is one of us.

It's not always a great gift to be like this.  We feel so deeply, we want to help so badly, but when we don't turn those feelings over to God, they can weigh heavily on us.  The gift of being tenderhearted is that we understand how others are feeling and thus, we can reach out and help in a way that others can't.  The curse of being tenderhearted is that if we don't learn how to lift those feelings off of ourselves, we can ache for long periods of time.

For a while, I have watched my tenderhearted boy become closed off.  Oh, he's friendly and people adore him.  When he's in a social setting he shines.  But there came a day that he stopped calling friends to do things.  He no longer initiated having friends to the house.  He would gladly go when invited, but he stopped doing the inviting.  This was very disconcerting as a mother to watch my gregarious outgoing boy, become the one who waited to see if anyone would invite him to go.

I tried many times to ask him why he wasn't calling his friends and why he didn't want to ask them to do something over the weekend.  He could never seem to find the words to explain his heart to me.  Then, the other night, I decided to press in, to insist that he look me in the eye and talk.  Slowly, painfully, he told me why he had become afraid to initiate any type of fun with his friends.

A year or so ago, there was this girl...he really liked her...there was this girl.  On Valentine's Day he had given her a little trinket and a card. She had laughed at him with her friends and told him she didn't want it.  My tenderhearted son was crushed, rejected, bruised.  Now, believe me, I get "puppy love".  After raising 6 kids I've seen more than my share of it and had many a talk with my children about it.  But this was different.  There was cruelty and public rejection of a boy who feels things so strongly, that it changed him.

From that day forward, he stopped asking his friends to do things, to go places, to come to our home.  He would gladly go when he was asked, but he would never initiate the asking.  As he told me his story with tears in his eyes, he said, "Mom, I just don't want to be rejected."  I explained to him about boys who I liked, that never knew I existed when I was young and my husband told him how rejection is part of life and he will be rejected by girls, potential employers, and friends.  He said that he could handle the rejection, but not being made fun of and laughed at when he had put his heart on the line.

This was a shining example of how seemingly harmless words and actions can actually bruise someone's soul and change who they are.  If we can tear someone down so easily, then maybe, if we're conscious of our words and actions, we can build them up, instead. As I talked with my boy that evening, I met his gaze with love and strength.  I wanted him to set that pain down and try again.  I prayed that he would lay it at the foot of the cross and leave it there.  The next week, when he came home from school, his face was lit up and I saw peace in his eyes.  He had asked a large group of friends to do something and they had all said yes and they had a wonderful time.  I thank God for healing that wounded place in my son, my boy.

As we come across people in the world, at the store, the bank, a restaurant, maybe we should consider what they may have been through that has changed them and treat them accordingly.  People can feel it when you celebrate them by placing value and preciousness on them!  I would encourage you to look at a person's heart when they are acting ugly or rude.  I don't mean to be a doormat, but maybe make an extra effort to show kindness and compassion.  You just might change someone's life!

From His lap,