It takes courage to "feel."

Especially if you are one who feels deeply.

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly 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 round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or 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.”
CS Lewis

“There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are messengers of overwhelming grief...and unspeakable love.”
Washington Irving


I think as one who naturally feels deeply, the only thing that frightens me more than feeling pain, is not feeling it. Those who are prone to feel the pains and joys of life with intensity are also most in danger of becoming numb. We think we cannot bear the intensity of our hearts, yet to kill that passion is to forget what it means to live. Oh Lord- let my heart not become hard. Soften that in it which is. Give me courage to feel.