Tenderness

In my Form 4 (10th grade) English class, we've been watching The Blind Side.

Even though I've watched it multiple times, there is one scene that always hits me. Leigh Anne sets up a bedroom for Michael and Michael says, "I've never had one before." Leigh Anne says, "What, your own room?" Michael says, "No, a bed." Leigh Anne tears up and quickly leaves the room.

What hit me about this scene is not that I teared up with Leigh Anne. Rather, it's that I didn't. I am stunned that her heart can be so wrenched by the thought that a boy would grow up without a bed that she starts crying, because I am unmoved.

My dear Form 4 girls told me after watching this movie that it was too touchy-feely, and asked that we stop watching Hollywood-feel-good movies. Being smart, worldly young people, they are suspicious of emotionalism and bored with good people. They have a point, of course. Much of the pathos in the movie is not subtly presented, and the plot is entirely predictable.

But what they said made me pause, because they sounded exactly like me at their age - cynical and critical of gushiness, detached while looking at human suffering (albeit staged in this instance). Most of the time, I preferred not to be involved enough in someone's unhappiness or mere discomfort to feel it.  I'd rather look at it, dissect it, discuss it, think about it from the outside. To me, someone with a tender heart was someone who couldn't think well.

But ten years later, I realize I've become much less critical of softies. People who feel other people's pain deeply have something I don't have.

Oh to have a tender heart! To act not just out of duty and reason, but out of a loving heart that is moved!

'When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things.' - Mark 6:34

'When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled... Jesus wept..."Lazarus, come out."' - John 11:33, 35, 43