Once upon a time, I heard a story about a boy who promised himself he wouldn’t cry anymore. And he didn’t.

He said he did this when he was about 7. Upon listening to the story, I was about 7 and I decided this was a top-notch idea, especially if it worked. I was sick of crying. 

So the next day when my parents were fighting and I I was feeling like crying, I went out into the yard. I promised myself out loud that I would not cry anymore. I clenched my fists, tipped my head back, stared hard at the sky. It worked. I didn’t cry.

Over the years, I honed this skill of not crying. I would do anything: hold my breath, put ice cubes on my eyeballs, pinch or burn myself in order to focus the pain outward. Eventually, by the time I was around 10 years old I didn’t have to try so hard. I could just turn it off. It seemed very useful…but it had an unintended effect.

As time went on, I grew extremely numb. I grew so numb that I couldn’t turn off the numbness. It was like I was living outside of my body all the time, watching myself walk around. I couldn’t feel anything, not even physical sensations. Once, while kissing my boyfriend, I could not even feel him touching me at all. It was very scary.

When I was 19, God began dealing with me about caring for other people. Somewhere along the line, I had decided to stop doing that too because it hurt too much. It seemed people always let you down just when you needed them most. I just wanted to stop being hurt.

Then God began to show me that I couldn’t share his love with other people without caring about them. I promised that if he would help me, I would reach out to others even if it hurt.

Now all these years later, here I am a teacher and writer. Every day, I share pieces of myself with others that I probably wouldn’t share if I didn’t know God. In fact, I think if I didn’t know God I would probably become a recluse altogether! But I pray about what I should share, and when, and with whom. I also pray for the insight to realize it’s not about me when people do or say hurtful things, and to draw fortitude from his Living Waters of endless strength.

I have come to believe what I shared in the Facebook Live video I did last night (Truth is…every positive action counts) – there are always two forces in the world, a positive and a negative, each working toward their own ends. If we try with sincerity to do right and good things, to love people, to share inspiration, I have to believe it counts. Even when it seems it doesn’t matter, it continues to place weight on the scales to the positive side of things, and all of our little positive forces add up together to be one BIG positive force!