Are You Tenderhearted?

[My site STATS show that this article in the Intimacy sub-domain of my site - which focuses on growing more intimate with the LORD, often gets amazing hits, even though I don't advertise it. It is a longish article so I'll just give you the first half and then give you the link to finish it online - if you are interested.]

Are you soft and tenderhearted? Easily moved? Do you identify with the weak and hurting, and get easily wounded yourself?

Welcome to my family! That's what a number of us in our family are like too. Dad was like that, so was his Dad, and his brother Aaron. Aunt Helena, his sister always had a tender tear in her voice. As does her daughter Brenda. My brother Tom was easily absorbed into another's pain, and of course, I've lived with it all my life too.

Some have that tenderness of spirit too, but have learned to lock it up in hiding.

In my case, a vivid imagination was stirred into the mix that became me.

If you're one of this breed you know the ups and downs of it, right? You're drawn totally into a story or drama, and every nuance in a family relationship or friendship is magnified. Joys are tremendous, but a crisis crushes you and tosses you into a pit of despair!

Sometimes you wonder why you have to experience everything so intensely. When someone hurts your feelings, you really suffer.

I've given this quite some thought at different times in my life, and I've concluded that I'd rather be like this than cold and unfeeling.

On the other hand, as with everything else, I think God wants us to learn to discipline ourselves, and balance our tender compassion with forethought, and a firm kindness toward ourselves and toward others.

"How, pray tell," you ask?

God's favourite method seems to put sharp, irregular people into our lives and even our homes. Maybe you have a friend who is always cutting you down. More likely it is a relative or family member who crushes you at almost regular intervals.

The key is all in how you respond. If you lie down and whimper in pain, you will hurt and your wound will bleed profusely, and never heal. If you keep running off to cry out to the Lord, and tell Him about it, and actually listen for His instructions, God will use that person to build a velvet-steel strength into your fiber. You'll learn to say "yes" to the right things, and "no" to the bad things. You'll learn to love like God! You'll learn to use your tenderness as a gift to bless and help others, and you will experience joy and contentment.

To read the rest of this article go to: Tenderhearted

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If You Read eBooks - You'll Want to See Bouquet's Books!

My ebook Shop has moved to the novel's site, and though the Store-Front page doesn't look perfect yet (to me) you might just want to see what kind of ebooks are already there and ripe for sales.

ruthes-secretroses.com/Library/Bouquets-Books.shtml

Ruthe's Secret Roses - (my novel, ebook) with link to softcover.
Color of Money -
Biblical Guide & Relationship Tips for Searching Singles -
Quizzes for Spoken & Written English -
Heart 2 Heart (poetry)
A Godly Inheritance -
Grandpa's Stories -
Our Neudorf Network -
Our Friesens & Assorted Friesens -
Legal Land Descriptions, Map Coordinates & Homesteads -

More are in the works!

By the way, those coloured squares? I think I'm suppose to put icons for each of the categories there, but I need to design them first.

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