Bubble Wrap for the Heart

We had a wedding shower a few weeks ago for my son and his soon to be bride. I was talking to someone about their selections and was asked... "What the heck were they thinking when they put bubble wrap as one of their selections at Walmart?" Hmm, I hated to tell them that it was one of my son's favorite play toys. Who doesn't like popping the bubbles on bubble wrap? I think I responded with they would be moving so it would come in handy. Actually there are a lot of times bubble wrap seems like an appropriate tool to have handy. A friend of mine posted the following quote by C.S. Lewis....

"Love anything and your heart will certainly be wrung and probably broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully around with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket--safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.....The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell."

Who hasn't had their heart broken by life? When life breaks my heart my initial instinct is to crawl to my hidie hole and never come out. The urge to insulate myself by removing all risk, all relationships and all possibilities of failure seems like a great alternative to being broken and betrayed by my own behavior and the behavior of others... Or simply to wrap my heart in bubble wrap so it will bobble and bounce with the blows. When I sent my  little ones to kindergarten for the first time, I came home feeling like I had released them to the lions. How I wanted to keep them safe and sound in our quiet little den, surrounded only with positive influences, healthy instruction, and unconditional love. In fact even today, as my last teenager leaves the house, I'd like to throw a lasso around him and drag him back into my arms, because I know the world can be a very cruel place and eventually he will get his heart, his spirit, and his pride broken. Short of holding him captive forever, the best I can do is wrap him in a bubble wrap of constant prayer and trust that my God is bigger than the lions of this world. If you look closely at the brokenness of a heart, the nicks and bruises suffered through life, create a tapestry of beauty that is painted from the pain each has suffered and the obstacles each has overcome.
Prayer is the bubble wrap for the heart.