Today’s prompt caught my imagination. I immediately thought Encrusted-Entrusted what could I do with that? Just where will my wacky way of thinking take me today?
Hmm…if I think of encrusted I think of encrusted with barnacles or encrusted with jewels. One is definitely more appealing than the other. My father would curse at the barnacles encrusting his boat. The jewels {sigh}, I’ve only seen things like that in museums or magazines.
Entrusted brings to mind precious things, like being entrusted with my beautiful stepdaughter and baby boys. Entrusted with my love’s heart and he is entrusted with mine. Sometimes I have entrusted something special to someone and they have broken it. It can’t be avoided in this life.
I find it very interesting {tapping fingertips together} that the English words are the same with the exception of one letter. Nothing more. Just interesting.
Then my thoughts verve off; As a crusty old woman…What will I be encrusted in? Welcome to my thinking process! Hopefully I’m not encrusted in warts and long fingernails like some gnarled old witch in a fairy tale. Maybe, (there go my fingers again!) if I win the Powerball tonight, I could be encrusted in jewels like a queen! Nah, too pretentious for a country girl like me.
Encrusted means to cover something with a hard layer. Entrusted means to put something into someone’s care or protection. So why do these two words together attract me? They don’t seem to be related. They rhyme…But, something was tugging at the back of my brain all day. Something my soul wanted me to grasp.
As I worked I kept thinking of the two words that had become attached in my mind, Encrusted-Entrusted. At lunch, I started pulling at the threads. A hard layer…A hard layer is built up over time. Like a boat in the water or a shell.
What would encrust me as I grow older? What would harden me? Oh My Goodness! That’s the connection! Do you see it? What hardens our hearts?
angst, anger, provocation, hurt, worry…
These are things that cause me to harden my heart. I build walls around my tender heart. When I venture out, I steel my heart with a strong shell to protect it.
What does the hardness hide? My empathy, compassion, and joy are cut off. I can easily see myself as an old woman bitter and alone in nursing home. Not reaching out to bring even a smile to someone’s day. The woman closes herself off to protect her heart.
David says in Psalms 95:8 “Harden not your heart, as in the rebellion, as in the day of trial in the wilderness, [NKJV]. Psalm 95 is a “Call to Worship and Obedience.” Later in verses 10-11 the result of hardening one’s heart is explained:
“For forty years I was grieved with that generation, and said, ‘It is a people that go astray in their hearts. And they do not know My ways‘ So I swore in My wrath, they shall not enter My rest.‘”[Psalms 95:10-11 NKJV]
Wow! Hardening my heart makes God angry. Oh boy…I don’t like that one bit. It also grieves Him. This makes me sad. The last thing I want to do is grieve the one Being in the universe I trust the most. I cannot protect my heart in this world filled with pain. But I can entrust my encrusted heart to Him.
My vision of an old woman (myself) with a hardened heart is scary. But Psalms 95:10 clearly shows how His people “go astray in their hearts…” God gives us the choice to harden our hearts or not. I could be that woman. If I stay on the path of encrusting my heart, I will go astray and be separated from my Father.
I am learning to entrust God with my open broken heart. I believe he will encrust my heart with Joy, Peace, Hope, Compassion and Love.
Have a blessed day entrusting in the Lord our God. {whisper: …and un-crusting our hard shells. Giggle}
Love,
Milly
Milly Really! 