The vulnerable among us
Some in our world are in for a tough life. They entered our world as gentle children and are growing as gentle young adults and a harsh world is going to be sheer hell for them. All of us feel deep pain when we’re insulted or assaulted but for these people it’s more than pain—it’s absolute agony. They are so built that the faintest breath of unjust or searing criticism opens deep wounds in their hearts. We can dismiss them as people who simply won’t grow up but that completely misunderstands them and it would grieve them all the more. It isn’t that they’re hypersensitive in that spoiled and self-centred way—they came into our world with a greater capacity for feeling than the vast majority of us possess.
As Tony Newley has taught us, they come to us and will believe our every word and if they trust us they will give us their hearts. They don’t know how to keep something in reserve; that capacity isn’t in them, and to people like that, when we break our promises, we break their hearts. To become impatient with them and curtly demand that they "get over it!" is to add torture to torment. We don’t give them grief for just a few months—grief that will heal by and by; some tender and believing souls will never recover and they’ll carry the pain all their days and nights. They’ll function but it will be a deeply sad pilgrimage. The pain won’t always be excruciating but though it hides it’ll never be far away and without warning it’ll steal the sun from their sky. There’ll be no really carefree days for them. Shy to begin with, they’ll be driven far within themselves; they’ll run far away from the possibility of rich life, too afraid and too deeply hurt to come out into the light again.
So if one like that comes to you, and she trusts you, make no promises that you’re not going to move heaven and earth to keep. If someone like that comes to you and he opens his or her heart to you, don’t go in if you don’t mean to stay because people like these are ill-equipped for a harsh world.
©2004 Jim McGuiggan. All materials are free to be copied and used as long as money is not being made.
Many thanks to brother Ed Healy, for allowing me to post from his website, the abiding word.com.