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What Can Thaw a Frozen Heart?

Spoiler Alert: there may or may not be spoilers in this blog post.

If your family is anything like mine, we are Frozen obsessed. We bought the movie on iTunes just last week and watched a portion if not all of it, EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. We needed a break as our obsession was getting out of hand. (And by “we”, I mean me and my husband).

There are so many aspects of this movie that we LOVE. The fun-loving, persistent, optimistic and full of life nature of Anna. The fun and truthfulness of Olaf. The friendship (and just sheer cuteness) of Sven. The bravery of Kristof. And of course there is Hans. Well, we’ll just let Hans speak for himself.

And then there is Elsa, the Queen. Elsa, the one who has had a frozen heart for far too long. The one whose heart is the most difficult to thaw. The fun and truthful snowman, Olaf, is on a quest with Anna to melt her frozen heart yet it is Elsa whose heart needs the thawing.

We also live with frozen hearts. We are born with a frozen heart towards God and some of us in life also develop a frozen heart towards others. We grow cold for many reasons. Maybe a past hurt, abuse, betrayal. Maybe a form of self-protection or protecting others leads them to have a frozen heart. Maybe fear or lack of trust.

We are all fully capable of shutting others out, letting bitterness take root, building walls and isolating ourselves. We are all capable of a frozen heart that needs thawing.

Most of my life I have lived with a frozen heart. From very young in life I have had a deep wound. This wound led me to shut people out, not care, not trust, and let bitterness take root and dwell. Until a few years ago, my heart was cold against one person in particular and against allowing God to thaw my heart.

I did my best to rebuild relationship, I went to therapy, prayed and worked through what forgiveness looked like. My heart was still cold as ice and one day I prayed this prayer,

“God, I do not care. I do not care if I have this heart forever. If you do care then you need to do something about it.”

That was my prayer. Nothing to be proud of, definitely nothing spiritual and mature in that prayer. It was an honest prayer. A prayer that laid it out there. If God wanted my heart to change then he would have to do something about it.

A few months later I woke one morning and something was different. My frozen heart had thawed, the bitterness was gone and the desire to reach out rather than shut out had emerged. My heart had changed. I had not done it, I know I had not (and you now know because I just told you what I prayed!). It was and still is the sheer grace of God.

You see the sacrificial love of Anna for her sister Elsa, the sacrifice that led to her death, is what melted Elsa’s frozen heart. That same (and greater) sacrifice is found in the life and sacrificial death of Jesus, who died for us and his death and love melts our frozen hearts. Jesus’ act of true love melts our hearts towards God and continues to melt our hearts when we are frozen towards others.

Do you have a frozen heart? How can you welcome Jesus to thaw it?

Photo courtesy of Disney.wikia.com