Home is Where the Heart Is

"Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life." Proverbs 4:23

A healthy new baby has no pretense. While it can sometimes be difficult to decipher a baby's "language", the little ones do a great job of expressing themselves naturally from the core of their being. No game playing. They just let it all out as they feel it. However, it doesn't take long for external influences to push and shape and even squelch a young one's natural responses. I remember with my own children, how often I would catch them looking at my face, trying to gauge my reaction to their behavior. They would listen carefully to conversations around them, trying to take it all in. They quickly learned what would get them positive or negative responses. They internalized these reactions and learned quickly that it could be important for their well-being to squelch certain impulses, words or actions.

This kind of learning is important for our children in many ways because it helps them learn to get along in society, to temper their impulsiveness and to have a sense of what is considered right or wrong. It certainly makes living with other people easier! However, despite its importance, the many voices that each of us are exposed to over our lifetime can be quite damaging at times. Think back on your own life. Can you see any defining moments in which your own voice, the cry of your heart, was overruled or worse, stomped on by another louder one?

It may have been the constant look of disapproval or anger on a parent's face or the seemingly undeserved slap or spanking you got. Perhaps the religion of your youth gave you the impression that you had to work very hard to gain God's approval, that you just weren't good enough as you were. It may have been something simple like a chance remark that made reference to a supposed flaw on your body or in your character. Maybe you were bullied or made fun of by classmates. Perhaps you felt as if you never measured up to the expectations of a lover or spouse and it seemed as if you were the one always blamed for any misunderstandings or conflicts in the relationship.

These things happen to all of us. The point here is not to lay blame upon the people that may have had a part in the squelching of our voices or the hurt inflicted on our hearts. Each of them were responding from their own ignorance and pain. And although I hate to admit it, I am guilty of doing this myself! The issue here is that it is important to acknowledge these things in our life and learn to listen once again to the newborn heart within each of us.

I would venture to guess that if you took some time to look back on your life, you would see those times in which your heart tried to tell you what was the truth about yourself, someone else or God. You probably felt a little niggle of warning or a welling up of joy as your heart attempted to make a connection with your brain about a particular someone or circumstance. And how many times, because of those old distorted recordings in our heads, did we ignore what our heart was trying to tell us? No doubt, it has happened far too often. The sad fact is, that each time we squelch that inner voice, it becomes harder to discern.

Over the last decade, my own life has fallen into the textbook pattern of looking back. My quest for meaning and truth has led me to examine many things. I have spent hours pondering my childhood, religion, spirituality, marriage and friendships. This introspection has been very valuable and has taught me several important lessons. The most vital thing that I've learned is that I CAN indeed trust my heart. With the perspective of time, I can now clearly see those times when my heart was trying to tell me something that I counted as mere fancy, or silly distorted emotion, when in fact it was speaking absolute truth.

In many ways, I feel as if I've spent much of my life walking through a thin veil of mist. I suppose that is what Paul is talking about in I Corinthians 13:12: "Now we see things imperfectly as in a poor mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God knows me now."

"Just as God knows me now." I like that! God knows me from the inside out. He's with me on this journey of self-discovery - the slicing through the fog, layer by layer. The way home is through Him and He is in my heart!