Do you sometimes feel like your heart is just too tender for this world?

A few weeks ago I received a text message from someone saying that’s how he felt. I didn’t have to ask what he meant. I know that tenderness. I feel it and experience it almost daily. 

Tender Places

Another war, this one in Iran. Americans have died. Iranian school girls were bombed and killed. Military personnel and civilians have died in and beyond Iran. 

Our “no new wars” Commander in Chief has said, “I, as the 47th President of the United States of America, am killing them. What a great honor it is to do so!” And he threatened to “hit [a previously bombed island] a few more times just for fun.” Our Secretary of Defense has promised “No quarter, no mercy for our enemies,” a violation of the Hague Convention.

The Epstein files continue to remind us that justice has not only been delayed, it has been denied. The violation of civil and human rights by ICE and CBP. Minneapolis, Renee Good, Alex Pretti, Liam Ramos, Narulamin Sha Alam. The scapegoating and oppression of immigrants. Antisemitism at a synagogue in Michigan. Gun violence in Austin and at Old Dominion University. The October 7th massacre and Hamas. Palestinians in Gaza. Ukraine and Russia. The upcoming fourth day of remembrance of the mass shooting in Uvalde. And then there are the personal griefs, losses, and hurts that headline our lives but don’t make the daily news. 

I think of Warsan Shire’s poem, “what they did yesterday afternoon”:

“later that night
i held an atlas in my lap
ran my fingers across the whole world
and whispered
where does it hurt?

it answered
everywhere
everywhere
everywhere.”

A Hurting Heart And A Suffering God

I whiplash between not wanting to read another news story and a faith that declares God is in the world, present everywhere it hurts. Neither offers relief. Either way my heart hurts. I wouldn’t be surprised if yours does too. Maybe you also feel too tender for this world. 

• The constant chaos and uncertainty are exhausting.
• The lies and contradictions often leave me cynical and untethered from the truth.
• The pain and needs of the world are palpable, overwhelming, and unrelenting.
• I feel powerless and what I do – pray, protest, donate money, call my representatives and senators – feels inadequate in light of all that is happening.
• The temptation to turn away, isolate, and let someone else deal with it is ever present. 
• My well of tears is deep, never runs dry, and my emotions float near the surface and sometimes overflow. 

I used to think that those were things I needed to get over, problems to be fixed. But now I wonder if they might not be some of the symptoms and costs of having a tender, open, and exposed heart. 

I wonder if Jesus was feeling too tender for this world when he “wept over [Jerusalem]” (Luke 19:41); when he said, “Now my soul is troubled” (John 12:27); when he wept at the grave of Lazarus (John 11:35); when in Gethsemane “he began to be grieved and agitated” and prayed, “Let this cup pass from me” (Matthew 26:37, 38); and when from the cross he cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46).

If that’s his experience of life in this world why would it not also be ours? After all, he never said, “Let me fix this for you.” He said, “Follow me.” 

“The way of discipleship leads to ‘being dragged into the messianic suffering of God in Jesus Christ.’” (Dorothee Soelle, The Silent Cry, 152, quoting Dietrich Bonhoeffer) “Christians stand with God in God’s suffering.” (Ibid.) Maybe that’s what it means to live with a tender heart in this world. 

How can we who claim to follow Jesus look at what is happening in our country and the world today and not have eyes that weep, not have a soul that is troubled, not have a heart that is grieved and agitated, and not wonder if we have been forsaken? God help and forgive us if we can because it probably reveals a heart that is hardened, closed, and defended. That’s the heart at the center of much of the world’s pain, violence, and injustice today. 

I know that heart too. Sometimes it feels like that’s the safest way to live in this world. But it also comes with a cost. That’s not who I want to be or how I want to live. I hope I always feel too tender for this world. How about you?

Living With A Tender Heart

How then does a tender heart live in the world these days? 

That’s a question I am asking myself and I think it might be the question behind the text message I received. 

I don’t have an answer. I suspect it’s one of those Rilke-kind-of-questions, a question to be carried and lived rather than answered. (Ranier Maria Rilke, “The Fourth Letter,” Letters to a Young Poet, 35)

Maybe we don’t need more answers or better answers. Maybe what we need is more people willing to live and experience a tender-hearted life, more people willing to “stand with God in God’s suffering.”

What would that look like and mean for you today? For me? For America? What tenderizes our hearts? What supports and helps us live a tender-hearted life? How might we help and encourage one another to live tender-hearted lives?

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Image Credit: Photo by Kristian Gonzalez on Unsplash.