How Many Heartbreaks Will I Leave Behind? Preschool Valentine's Day Devotion

February in preschool is all about the love. We exchange Valentine’s Day cards. We talk about friendship, kindness, and most importantly we practice our memory verse “God is Love” 1 John 4:8. 

 “It’s all good”, as my favorite children's literary character, Pete the Cat, would say. 

Until, it’s not so good…

Today at preschool a great life lesson was learned.  Only it seems the one who needed the lesson was Mrs. Yolanda and not the children. I hate it when that happens!  Even though it was probably intended innocently, I was basically told to “Put a bubble in it.” Which is a polite way of saying, “Be quiet”.  We use that cute expression to have the children pretend to put a bubble in their mouth so that we can quiet them down for story time. It works great.  It works great for adults too as I found out. Though, I’ll admit, I felt like I was choking on my bubble. So as I’m sitting there with my pretend bubble in my mouth, wallowing in hurt feelings, a teacher starts to read, Heartprints, by P.K. Hallinan.  It’s a great book that talks about when we do acts of kindness for others we touch their hearts and leave heartprints behind.

While I’m hearing these beautiful words I start praying, “Lord, please convict this person’s heart who told me to put a bubble in my mouth so they can apologize and my hurt feelings will go away.” Literally, I am praying these exact words to the Lord.  Then this phrase comes into my mind, “How many hearts will YOU break today.” At first, I’m thinking, “Nah, nah, nah! Oh yeah, the Lord’s going to make them feel bad now.” Then I start recalling memories of times I have spoken harshly to someone or I have been inconsiderate. I felt like the Lord was reminding me, “Yolanda, how many hearts have you broken?”  OUCH!

And just so that the Lord would make sure that I got the message, He prepared my heart yesterday when a coworker left a great devotion in my mailbox called, “Love is Tactful, Not Just Truthful” by Rick Warren.This devotion states:

“The way you say something determines the way it will be received. If you say something offensively, it’s going to be received defensively. That’s why love is all about your words. Love is truthful, but it is also tactful. Tack and tone always go together. It matters the way you say something, not just what you say.”

One of the memories the Lord brought to mind was my recent reunion with two college friends. One friend I had not seen in 12 years. We lost contact after her wedding and just stopped talking to each other.  She recently found me on Facebook and I am so glad that she did. One question she had for me was, “Why did we stop talking? Did I do something to offend you the last time I saw you?” She’d held these painful thoughts close to her heart all these years. I felt terrible because it was nothing that she had done; life just took us in different directions. But as I recalled this memory, the Lord brought to mind another.

My first year in college, I met these two amazing young women.  A few months after hanging out every day together, I was invited to dinner. I lovingly refer to this dinner as my “intervention”.  You see, they sat me down to have a little chat. It seems that my humor could be a little harsh.  I had a certain “tone” that really hurt their feelings. WHAT? OH PLEASE. I wanted to storm out of their little apartment and take my amazingly, witty self out of there.  But I realized something. These girls mattered to me. I really cared about them. Both shared how they cared enough to let me know how they felt. WOW! I’d never had anyone care enough about my friendship to risk losing it.  I sat myself back down, swallowed my “bubble”, and agreed to change. That little intervention has always stuck with me as a great life lesson and I've always appreciated learning it.

One of the greatest glimpses God gave me today was of my friend that was brave enough to express her feelings again after 12 years. She was always the kindest and sweetest out of the three of us. I’m, as you know, sarcastic. My other friend is one tough cookie. She’d scare me if I didn't love her so much. But our other friend is just sweet. Why she chose to hang out with us, I’ll never know but I thank God for her friendship. God surely knit all three of our hearts together, so that we could help each other survive the college years because I would have been lost without them.  And what God joined together all those years ago, He intends never to be torn apart because the minute we saw each other again the years melted away and that bond of friendship was cemented.

So God is Good! Because when I chose to turn the finger inwards instead of outwards I realized that we all have the potential to leave “heartbreak prints” on each other’s hearts.  We may not even mean to. We could be tired, ill, or just annoyed. Our words may seem innocent but our tone is harsh.

The Bible says that a rash word is like a sword thrust (Proverbs 12:18). And I’ll admit that today I felt like a little sword had been thrust into my heart.  But I’m thankful for it because God physically allowed me to feel pain so that I would remember to try and never intentionally, or even unintentionally, inflict that pain on someone else. It has taken me 45 years to see that harsh words are just not worth the pain they cause others.  My prayer is that just like that “intervention” in college helped me grow, God will continue to work on my character. So the more I become like Christ, the more I leave “heartprints” in my wake and not “heartbreak prints”.

Ephesians 4:29 (AMP)

Let no foul or polluting language, nor evil word nor unwholesome or worthless talk [ever] come out of your mouth, but only such [speech] as is good and beneficial to the spiritual progress of others, as is fitting to the need and the occasion, that it may be a blessing and give grace (God’s favor) to those who hear it.

So from now let’s put a bubble in our mouth if we’re about to hurt someone’s feelings. Let’s chew on our words for a while if necessary. If they are harsh or unnecessary let’s swallow them. But if they are encouraging, uplifting, and will bring Glory to God then let’s blow the biggest, sweetest, bubble imaginable. So big that when it pops, Jesus in Heaven will get some spittle on His face, laugh, and rejoice with us.

Love,

Yolanda

Found this next song and I love it: "The Lord is near the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit." Psalm 34:18 (ESV)