There are walls, gates, borders, and barriers all around.
Gated communities.
Walls and barriers that divide not just nations,
          but families that find themselves on both sides of a wall.
Some think those walls keep them safe.
Others know different,
          their tears revealing how these same walls cut them off from loved ones on the other side of the walls.

There are walls and borders, and barriers inside us.
So many of us have fronts, masks, barriers, walls to guard the vulnerability of our own hearts.
We put the inner core of our heart safely hidden behind these walls.
We ourselves are great carvers of personas,
We are the great mask artists
          hiding our tender hearts
          behind these walls.

We think these walls keep us safe
Somehow we haven’t learned
The walls we hide behind
          keep us from being loved
          keep anyone from reaching us.

May we see the walls between our hearts come down;
may we see the walls between our communities come down;
may we see the walls between our nations come down.

We have to be more noble to each other
than Joshua at the gates of Jericho.
When those walls came down
no one was spared but Rahab the prostitute.

Somehow we have to give each other the trust
that when the walls come down
each wounded soul will be cherished
honored
loved.

We have confused strength with impenetrability.
We have lost sight of how there is power and strength in being vulnerable.
We’ve forgotten about how the most beautiful and powerful people in the world are those who stand there vulnerable, willing to lower their walls, risking enough to be hurt.

It’s not about foolishness and being reckless with one’s hearts, but with knowing that no one is an island unto themselves.
We want not to be hurt
we need to be loved.

We cannot be loved from behind walls.

Here is what our wounded soul is crying behind the walls of our hearts:

Tell me,
show me that you love me enough
To be vulnerable.
Tell me that you love you enough
To be open to my love.