LIFE SCRIPTS

Each heart knows its own bitterness, and no one else can share its joy.
Proverbs 14:10 NIV

The heart is a wonder organ. It pumps blood through our arteries for the entire length of our lives. But more to it, it’s reference points us towards emotions. It has the capacity to hide the most receptive and also the most hostile of emotions within it. In this scripture, two emotions associated with the heart are mentioned; joy and bitterness. Both extremes of each other yet could reside within the heart. We cannot however know someone’s state of heart unless they speak about it or show it through facial expressions, gestures and emotions. If emotions are hidden, the only one who understands them is the one who’s heart hosts them. We can understand ourselves through searching our hearts to know our emotions. Some emotions show up more easily on the surface than others. Others, need a little more prodding to bring them out to the surface. Also, it depends with the character or temperament a person has. Outgoing people are expressive with their emotions while reserved people are more stoic, hiding their emotions. In the kind of world we’re living in, we are bombarded with a myriad of emotions on a daily basis: a day may begin gloomy (say on a Monday), soon after we hit the road to work, we encounter a huge traffic jam caused by a fatal accident and our emotions get gloomier. As we get to the office we meet an angry boss waiting for us to explain the reasons for being late while at the same time are reminded of our birthday by our workmates who send gifts and sing for us ‘happy birthday’. So within a day, we might have a roller coaster of emotions pulling our hearts one way or the other and by the end of the day, we’re not sure how we feel. The good things seem to light us up but there’s just something bad situations do to our hearts…they discourage us. As this passage says, both bitterness and joy within someone’s heart can only be known by that person. If we take time to search our hearts, try to understand our emotions, try to know which ones we respond to much more readily than others, we’ll be a step closer to guarding our hearts from bitterness and negativity.