Strong Heart

A few days ago, a friend spoke two words to me that have lingered on my mind, Strong Heart. I leaned in and told her, "thank you," and asked if she would meditate and pray that thought with me in the weeks ahead. Later that night I could not sleep, thinking about what the words “Strong Heart” meant.

In the days ahead I face the need for a Strong Heart physically, as I place my trust in surgeons to perform open heart surgery and mend those broken places in my heart. They will literally hold the responsibility for stopping my physical heart and bringing it back to life again at the end of the healing process. Some of you have been through this and know that you tremble at that thought, but at the same time you somehow manage to stay steady.

As I have tried to remain steady, I spent time thinking over what made my heart strong. First and foremost, it has been my belief that God, our Higher Power, has the ability to heal and has given us, as humans, the wisdom to do miraculous things like restarting a heart. My family, my children, grandchildren and close friends fill my heart with a love I never knew until they filled those places in my heart. They seem to stitch things back together when I don’t have the strength some days to do it for myself.

The work I have been led to do has been part of what mends my heart, not physically but spiritually. One of the greatest gifts I was given was a place to do work that believes that a person can be made whole again. I am one of those people who came here with the thought that I was there to serve others. Then the longer I stayed working in this place, I realized I was filling the places in my own broken heart, finding healing as I walked beside those who just needed someone to stay present while they were mending and finding their own Strong Heart.

I filled those crevices with time, often sitting beside people who thought their world was too broken to heal, offering a steady hand to one that was trembling. As one of our former residents reminded all of us recently, “You have to stick around long enough to see the miracle.”

That is part of growing the Strong Heart.

In the book, The Heartestry Project by local author, Kimberly Bridges, she wrote the exact words that I often feel in this work at Hospitality House — “Give your tender heart the love it needs to heal. We were never meant to suffer alone. Love and mercy finds their way through the cracks. Our hearts are stronger and more beautiful from being reconstructed with the broken pieces, gorgeous mosaics that carry stories within.”

As I have pondered these stories that have woven my Strong Heart spiritually, I came to realize that the days ahead are going to be more challenging than I can do alone. If there was a way that I could hand some of the big things over to those of you who have the strength to keep it going, while I take the time to physically mend to a stronger heart, it would ease some of that burden.

Remembering that we cannot carry the full burdens alone is a hard lesson for most of us. I came by my stubbornness naturally with my family, and now I need to hold out my own hand to ask - "Can you carry it for a while?"

In the days ahead, if you want to do something, then I am asking that you consider not only a prayer but also a gift, any size helps, that will continue the work of building Strong Hearts.

The doctors tell me that I cannot be there in person for a while, so it will take a community saying, “We have this, let go and take the time to mend, we will carry the load right now.”  To know that this agency will carry on and not face more challenges while I take this time would be a gift to me and to every person who is seeking a place like Hospitality House to grow a Strong Heart.

I am so grateful to live in a community that so often shoulders the burden of their neighbors. The words Strong Heart were given to me as a prayer. I think the greatest gift was when I realized that the only way to mend the physical heart was to give over the need and reach out my hand, asking others to be part of building Strong Hearts and helping to sustain our agency while I am away. 

In closing, I offer a quote again from, The Heartestry Project — “We were meant to use this symbol to convey Love." 

​​​​​​​In gratitude for your support and encouragement, 

Tina B. Krause

Executive Director

Hospitality House Northwest N.C.