Calloused Hearts — Carol McLeod Ministries
A Note from Carol: One of the greatest joys of my ministry is sharing voices that stir the soul and point us back to the heart of God. Today, I’m honored to introduce you to Noelle Borgia—a worship leader, speaker, and courageous survivor whose story is marked by healing, redemption, and powerful hope. With raw honesty and unwavering faith, Noelle reminds us that God is faithful in the darkest valleys, and that His truth always has the final word. Her journey will inspire you to walk in your God-given identity and to trust His love—even in the midst of brokenness.
“You will be ever hearing but never understanding;
you will be ever seeing but never perceiving.
For this people’s heart has become calloused;
they hardly hear with their ears,
and they have closed their eyes.
Otherwise they might see with their eyes,
hear with their ears,
understand with their hearts
and turn, and I would heal them.”
(Matthew 13:14-15)
You may have felt close to the Lord at one point in your life when you were inspired and motivated to fully surrender to Him and make Him first in your life…but something happened. Just as Jesus describes in Matthew 13 in His Parable of the Sower, life got in the way, and the seed that was planted was choked out by weeds or thorns, or…snatched away entirely in the form of worries; weights; offenses; circumstances; relationships; inadequacies; illness; loss; addiction; finances; children…the list could go on endlessly.
Or perhaps now, you have a desire to serve Him, and you can feel that He has been chasing you like the Good Shepherd that He is, but something is preventing you from stepping into a full relationship with Him. You can’t figure it out, and perhaps you can’t understand the fullness of joy other Christian women seem to find in their relationship with the Lord. It’s almost as if you are drawn like a moth to a flickering light far in the distance, but as you pursue the light, you feel as though you just can’t reach it, and then you quickly retreat to the place you are stuck in. Perhaps being around joyful people who are serving the Lord makes you slightly angry, but you can’t quite figure out why. Can you pinpoint what is holding you back from walking hand in hand with the God who created you specifically for the relationship He covets with you? Even if you can’t articulate it, you understand precisely what I am talking about and can sense it in your heart.
Let’s look at Matthew 13:14-15: Your ears hear the Lord calling to you, but the message isn’t quite resonating in your heart. Your eyes are capable of seeing Him from afar, but a foggy lens seems to be over them, preventing you from seeing Him more clearly. And your heart…what have you constructed around it so that it has become calloused and hardened?
I’ll help you out… because I had to tear the same walls down around my heart: It’s unforgiveness. The Lord is looking to fill your whole heart, but it’s hard for Him to get in if you have built fortified walls out of unforgiveness around it.
And guess how unforgiveness grows best? When it's planted in the soil of bitterness. When you plant your life in this soil, its poison is able to feed all the branches of your life, extending from its root: Bitterness. Deuteronomy 29:18 warns: “Make sure there is no root among you that produces bitter poison.” This poison infiltrates what is able to reach us, skews our vision, and taints our ears so that we have a hard time hearing and discerning the voice of God. However, the Bible tells us there is excellent news: The Lord promises that He will “give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; He will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh!”
Go to the Lord today and inspect all the building materials: the hurts, the offenses, the shame, the guilt, the fear - whatever materials you have used to construct the walls around your heart. I struggled greatly with a paralyzing fear, born from years of storing up offenses, and I always kept a shield around my heart so that nothing could penetrate too deeply, not even the love of God. But those walls can be torn down, just like the walls of Jericho, and with a great shout of victory! What you cannot do in your own strength, God can. This is where the act of surrender comes in. Ask Jesus to strip away all the bitterness, the unforgiveness, the fear you are harboring, or any other walls you have built up around it…and believe that He has. Then, stop carrying it all around. Don’t carry around the baggage the Lord has stowed away on your behalf!
The strangest thing happens when we fully surrender: It’s when we stop trying to do it on our own that God is truly able to step in and get the job done! How many times have we seen in the Bible where Jesus changed someone's heart in an instant? This is what circumcision of the heart means…He will come in with a chisel and cut away all of the fortified materials that are preventing His love from fully penetrating your heart! It only takes one encounter with our living, loving God to change everything and to “circumcise your hearts…so that you may love him with all your heart and with all your soul!” (Deuteronomy 30:6)
The Lord is willing and able to open your eyes to see Him, to open your ears to hear His voice more clearly, and to help you understand in your heart, beyond a shadow of doubt, that He loves you and has more in store for you! Turn to Him today, pursue His light that casts out all darkness, and allow His healing power to restore you to newness of life today; the time of refreshing has come. (Acts 3:19)
“Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.”
(Psalm 51: 10,12)
In this heartfelt episode of the Significant Women podcast, Carol McLeod welcomes worship leader, speaker, and trauma survivor Noelle Borgia. With raw honesty and powerful hope, Noelle shares her journey of healing, wrestling with the lies of the enemy, and learning to walk in the truth of who God says she is.
Noelle’s story is a testimony to the power of God’s love to redeem every broken place. From an encounter with the Holy Spirit at age seven to years of silence and struggle, and eventually to breakthrough and ministry, Noelle opens up about how worship and truth became the weapons that pulled her out of shame and darkness.
This episode is a must-listen for anyone walking through pain, carrying trauma, or believing they’re too broken to be used by God.
In This Episode You’ll Learn:
How childhood trauma shaped Noelle’s identity—and how God redefined it
The difference between knowing Scripture and living it
What it looks like to partner with the Holy Spirit in healing
How worship played a pivotal role in her breakthrough
Why your story matters and how God can use it
Find Noelle and the work of Shattered Mirror Ministries at https://shatteredmirrorministries.com/
The Significant Women Podcast with Carol McLeod is edited and produced by WileyCraft Productions. Visit https://wileycraftproductions.com/ to learn more.
