We Are Not Raisins

So this evening I was thinking about salt and how it preserves things. I wondered why it does that, so I looked it up. Turns out it preserves food because it reduces the moisture in which bacteria would normally form. But I imagine in reducing that moisture, while you lengthen shelf-life, you lose nutrients.

Then I thought of us as people. There are things in our lives that are frail and delicate, like our tender emotions and weaknesses. And they make us vulnerable. Vulnerable to criticism, misunderstanding, ridicule, maybe violence--all those things we don't want. So we rub our own salt on the issue. We control the situation by saying we're "not going to be so nice anymore. Then people will learn not to walk over us." Or we hide by spending time alone, maybe "just this once" until it becomes easier to distance ourselves than to be around people who may help us! Or we hide behind sarcasm, self-ridicule, an apologetic attitude, even a "religious" attitude in which we always have to justify ourselves to others.

Either way, we put salt on our vulnerable spots in our hearts. But when we do that, you know what else we put salt over? Receiving love from others, even being able to see the love God has for us. Receiving an understanding ear, some sympathy, a shoulder to cry on. Who will lend you a shoulder when they don't know you have tears to cry?

The only real way to be vulnerable is to let Jesus heal your heart. Once you know you are secure in His love, nothing will be able to harm you. The Bible tells us that when you walk with God, "no weapon fashioned against you will prosper." Of course, you still have feelings that will sometimes get hurt, but He is the best comforter in the world. When was the last time your abrasive front or solitude brought you peace without regret or loneliness? 

So I am learning to be a grape. We weren't meant to be stones, but to be humans with soft hearts, and that takes a strength only God can give. After all, it's not a desert that preserves life, but a wellspring. If we are all wellsprings for one another, suddenly the healing we long for won't seem so far away.