The Hardened Heart

It's Friday, y'all!  

And not just any Friday, but a Friday I've been looking forward to for weeks now.  Nick Vitellaro (I've written about him once before here) released the video for his latest spoken word poem, "The Hardened Heart."

For those of you seeing this via email or a reader who won't see the embedded Youtube video, here's my transcription of the (incredible!!!) poem. (Seriously, it's incredible. You should go check it out.) (And okay, let me clarify - it's my best transcription. There may be a few errors; the boy talks fast!)

"The Hardened Heart" by Nick Vitellaro

Allow me to introduce myself. Some of you may already know me. I don't mean to be rude or intrusive. I just thought it would be fair to give you a warning. We may already be best friends, or you may hardly even know I exist. Either way, let me paint you some perspectives. On my campus, I walk down the halls of my high school, too cool to pray, and too proud to pursue the vision God has called me to. I'll say I'm waiting for confirmation or some kind of sign while I sit back and watch my classmates be blind.  "They have planks in their eyes," I'll say. "I just have a little bit of sawdust in mine." Lord, this was not what I had in mind! I'm trying to be their light, but it's too dark in here to shine. I will justify and rationalize to nullify the pain of watching my closest friends die.

I am the hardened heart of Christianity.  Well, me, myself, and I are doing just fine within the confines of the church property lines. We are seeing more and more come to church every single week and still experiencing defeat out on the city streets. Seven days without Jesus makes one weak. That's why my favorite thing to play is hide and go seek, seeking Jesus at church but hiding the rest of the week. And I am numb to feeling sympathy, passion, a stranger to me, as if doing something about injustice is actually my responsibility. I'm too busy with my own calling and what God has for me than to actually do anything about the call God has placed right in front of me.

But I'm such a good actor, I could fool Steven Spielberg. The performance I put on at church is superb. My script is equipped with mighty adjectives but lacks the verbs. I have won the Hypocrisy Oscar Awards. You see, I learned all the motions until I became a master of disguise, thought I could hide from the Master of the skies, thought my own theories were divine so I disconnected from the vine, telling everybody else where to find Christ, but never allowing Himself to change my life.

But I mean, my salvation is set in stone, right? I mean, I am a Christian by tradition, 'cause after all, I do celebrate Christmas. But these material presents are blinding me from God's presence. Now I'm bitter and restless, and my callousness has brought me to cowardliness. So in the fight to save my family, coworkers, and friends, I have become a pacifist. But I'll sit in church, say I'm getting fed while lacking the spiritual nutrients, starved myself from fasting so becoming well-fed was really becoming sick, refused to partake of the Bread daily so I got anorexic, developed a gag reflex so I spat out the same regurgitated message and expected those around me to openly digest it.

See, I have a confession. I am the victim. I long for redemption. I'm sick of saying I don't hear anything from God when really, I won't listen. I'm tired of these conditions. Side effects are heart-attackin' me, searing the freedom that once pumped through these arteries. They put my heart's dreams into custody, handcuffed my destiny to apathy, cardiac arrest in me when all I needed was a rest in me.  No wonder the leading cause of death is heart disease. But even though these bones have been dry for the longest time, I think I can hear that still small voice calling this sleeper to rise, because where there is death, He breathes life. He says, "I will take your cold, calloused heart and replace it with Mine. Let Me exchange your heart with its original design."

So yeah, they do have planks in their eyes, but you know what? So do I. But Jesus was the greatest carpenter of all time. He could craft destiny out of every lumber found in the eyes of mankind. He enabled Noah to build the ark, Solomon to build the temple, out of the very wood taken from the trees He Himself rooted in the earth. He would even plant a seed that would give birth to the very tree that He would hang on to show you your worth. So I refuse. I refuse to drown in the same waters He walks on. And even though it was locked as the door of my heart, He knocks on it.

So if you identify with any of the hardened heart symptoms, listen. Stop buying into the world's sales pitches and slogans, 'cause they will leave you bankrupt at the cost of your emotion. But Christ is in the business of putting frozen hearts back into motion. He's available 24/7 with arms wide open, and His unconditional redemption gives promotion to every testimony ever spoken, 'cause our cold, calloused hearts are like God's glow sticks. To shine, they must first be broken.

(taken from the end scene of the video)

I think a big part of the reason why I was so excited about the drop of this new poem video was because since I knew what a major effect Nick's first two poems had had on me (I still love to go back and watch, even though I can pretty much recite them by heart, haha!), I was anxious to see what this third poem would be and how it would touch my heart.  This poem really made me see that God does have me on a journey of healing right now, not just from the physical pain I'm dealing with, but more importantly from the wounds both old and new that I either thought had healed or just chose to ignore.  This poem hit on a lot of the same stuff that Jeff Bethke's book did.  But let me start from the beginning.  I promise, I'll try not to make this drag on forever.  I just want to share my heart and how, once again, I see myself and my story in Nick's words.

I'll say I'm waiting for confirmation or some kind of sign while I sit back and watch my classmates be blind.  "They have planks in their eyes," I'll say. "I just have a little bit of sawdust in mine." Lord, this was not what I had in mind! I'm trying to be their light, but it's too dark in here to shine. I will justify and rationalize to nullify the pain of watching my closest friends die.

Nick may have been talking about school and friends and classmates here, but it instantly made me think of my family.  Matt, my best friend, too, but mostly my family.  Especially with my sisters, I spent most of my teenage years focusing on all the things that were wrong with them, justifying any time I felt I had upset my mother with "I'm the good child!  I'm better than them!"  The contempt would drip from my lips like poison, except I was the only one dying inside.  And now, I've gotten to the point where I avoid going home whenever possible simply because it's too exhausting to be there.  Instead of choosing to go where it's dark and dirty and ugly, the kind of place where Jesus would have spent his free time, and show them God's love for them through my actions of love for them, I took the cowardly way out and chose to avoid them altogether.  I've cried at night sometimes, wondering why God couldn't just my already complicated life a little easier and give me a family who were already Christians.

"But I'm such a good actor, I could fool Steven Spielberg. The performance I put on at church is superb. My script is equipped with mighty adjectives but lacks the verbs. I have won the Hypocrisy Oscar Awards. You see, I learned all the motions until I became a master of disguise, thought I could hide from the Master of the skies, thought my own theories were divine so I disconnected from the vine, telling everybody else where to find Christ, but never allowing Himself to change my life."

I've said on this blog before that when I was in the depths of my depression during those six brain surgeries in the fall of 2009, I was a master at making people believe that I believed in God, secretly scoffing behind their backs, or when the doors shut or the emails were sent, that they actually bought the lies I fed them.  I thought it was their mistake for thinking a broken, 17-year-old girl with no solid Christian foundation could be going through medical hell and still have faith and joy.  Really, I was fully convinced that I was going to handle my life, I didn't need anybody else's advice, or their pity, and especially not the God who, in my eyes, was putting me through this torture in the first place.  But when people showed up to check in?  Oh yeah, I knew exactly what they wanted or needed to hear, just enough that would make them think I already agreed with what they wanted to tell me.  I knew what to say, the smile to put on my face, but the whole time the typical Christianese spiel came out of my mouth to pastors, nurses, friends, I knew in my head that I was fooling them all. 

"Now I'm bitter and restless, and my callousness has brought me to cowardliness. So in the fight to save my family, coworkers, and friends, I have become a pacifist."

Again, even now, even when I know what it feels like to have your life radically flipped upside down by the love that can only come from the Father, I've basically...stopped trying.  I hide this part of me, the very core of who I am, because it's easier and less heartbreaking to avoid the awkward and tense conversations that lead to argument.  I ask myself what the point is - they're never going to see it my way, anyway.  So I keep my mouth shut, and I stay away so I don't become the version of me that is what's comfortable for them.  And in my heart, I resent them for not letting me be the person I am without snarky remarks in return just because they disagree with it.

"But even though these bones have been dry for the longest time, I think I can hear that still small voice calling this sleeper to rise, because where there is death, He breathes life. He says, "I will take your cold, calloused heart and replace it with Mine. Let Me exchange your heart with its original design.""

I spent 19.5 years of my life running as far as I could from anything that had "God" or "Christianity" attached to it.  And still, He came after me.  He made me alive for the first time when He forced me to the breaking point where I realized that if I kept trying to fight for myself, it was going to kill me.  He made me alive when He introduced me to The Vespers and planted that question in the back of my mind, Is this what Christians can really be like?  And slowly, step by step, day after day, with a few detours thrown in as I tried to run back to the mindset I'd grown so accustomed to, He pieced my broken life back together and gave me life, real life.

"So yeah, they do have planks in their eyes, but you know what? So do I. But Jesus was the greatest carpenter of all time. He could craft destiny out of every lumber found in the eyes of mankind...He would even plant a seed that would give birth to the very tree that He would hang on to show you your worth...And even though it was locked as the door of my heart, He knocks on it."

Being saved by God, being baptized into Christ, was hands-down the most humbling experience of my life.  It was when I took my focus off judging everyone else, my sisters for being rebellious, the kids at school for calling themselves Christians but purposely aiming to make my life as difficult as they could, that I was able to see that I can be just as hypocritical as the rest of them.  And when I admitted to that, it was like, as Jeff writes in his book, God said, "Okay, now that you're being honest, we can finally get somewhere."  God saw and knew how broken I was inside, and instead of leaving and giving up like what I was used to, He kept pursuing me until I gave in.  And it was the best thing I've ever done.  I opened the door, and I found everything I was missing before, a lot of stuff I had foolishly convinced myself I didn't need.

"But Christ is in the business of putting frozen hearts back into motion. He's available 24/7 with arms wide open, and His unconditional redemption gives promotion to every testimony ever spoken, 'cause our cold, calloused hearts are like God's glow sticks. To shine, they must first be broken."

I met The Vespers about three months after I hit my breaking point.  If I had met them before that, I wouldn't have been ready for it.  I wouldn't have had the guts to tell Bruno my life story in the middle of a crowded dining hall.  I would have missed the lesson that God wanted to show me, that my story can change people, even affirmed Christians.  When God really ripped me in two in the middle of that church in Nashville, I changed.  For good.  People who see pictures of that night tell me I look like I'm glowing.  I started telling my story to complete strangers, to anyone and everyone who would listen.  I can boast about how broken I am because then I can tell people how whole He is.  And I wouldn't have the confidence I have now, I wouldn't have emails and texts saying that I've changed lives all across the country, even from people I've never laid eyes on, if He hadn't broken me.  All of that darkness and brokenness that I felt was because He knew that He wanted to get me here, that one day I would be filled with a burning passion to tell everyone I know about the God that saved me.  And if I'm going to do this for strangers, I need to do it for the people that I love, too.

This video is healing for me.  Healing to let go of the resentment I hold towards others both from my past and my present, the fear that I'll never be good enough for God to really love me, to not hide my faith or my love for Jesus from anyone, especially not from the people I love most.  This journey of healing that I'm on is dirty and twisted and confusing, but it's never-ending, and it's getting me to where I ultimately need and want to be: in heaven, worshiping the One who pulled me through in the first place.

Thanks, Nick.  Glory be to Him!