first things first

A couple of months back we had a new subscription to our cable company and with that came the free so many months of movie channels. So as most people do I suppose, I looked up any and all movies I could possibly want to watch in the future and set them to record so that when the free trial ran out I would still have free movies. Most were movies that had come through theatres that had caught my eye but not enough for me to fork out the 8 almost 9 dollars to see it. Some of the movies were old movies like Rocky IV or Dirty Dancing, but there was one movie I had never heard of. It must have stayed saved in my DVR for a couple of weeks before one night I decided to watch it. The whole movie was a mockumentary about this girl who doesn’t believe she can fall in love but eventually does with Michael Cera before they break up over her inability to admit and let herself be in love. It was pretty sad but I found myself relating to her. In a weird way I understood her. I began wondering why she was like that. The deeper problem was not that she couldn’t love but that she couldn’t trust anyone else or herself. Trust was really the issue

The movie really impacted me and I wrote a song inspired by it using its same title, Paper Heart. And as I sit here trying to think of what to call this blog and why I want it, the movie and the resulting song is all I can think about. My whole life I have always looked for someone I could trust. I am talking about really trust where both hearts are opened and shared. The kind the world has deemed impossible, irresponsible, or imprudent. And it is sad to me to watch people my age walk through hurt and betrayal like it was scheduled on their daily calendar, just another part of the week, or like they don’t even feel it. It’s like they have found the secret to never getting hurt in never investing or caring enough to get hurt to begin with. It’s sad and lonely and numbing. The Bible says we have someone who sympathizes and relates to our struggles and pains in Jesus Christ. He can relate to us not because he went through disappointment and pain and wasn’t affected by it, but because he suffered well knowing that His father in heaven was worthy to trust. He laid down His life trusting in the Father’s plan all the while experiencing rejection, pain, and heartache. We experience no trial of pain or heartache that Christ can’t hold our hand and comfort us through. As brother’s and sister’s in Christ we share in suffering not so we can become embittered and numb but so that we may become more like Christ and become empathetic to our fellow man.

I have not walked through this world without being let down and I know that chances are I will be let down by the people I love the most. But, I hope those experiences will only bring me closer to the side of my Lord and never one brick closer to a wall around my heart that keeps others out. I have found the one I can trust in Christ and I want to show how He holds all things together, that He will meet you right where you are, and where He is there is liberty. It is for me like everyone else, not an overnight transformation from numb to feeling or chains to liberty, but a progressive growing and learning of His love that reveals the freedom and security I have in him a little more every day. So this is my Paper Heart. In him it is held together and through him it is given away …