Above all else, guard your
heart, for it is the wellspring of life. -Proverbs 4:23
To think of one’s heart,
most folks don’t think about the cardiac muscle that sits in the middle of
their chest giving us life. The “heart” of someone is more quickly equated with
someone’s ability to be gracious and empathetic, to be loving and caring. The
heart of someone is a symbol of that person’s sum total of life experiences and
that person’s tendencies to respond and interact with another person. Most
everyone knows someone who is negative and opinionated and that less than
pleasant person to be around is given a blanket pass to act in a rude manner.
“Don’t mind him, he’s always grumpy.”
Like the Grinch, the assumption is made that they have hearts made of
stone.
Why is that? What benefit
does the Grinch have of being grumpy? Certainly doesn’t tend to bring around
friends and family. Very likely co-workers go out of their way to avoid dealing
with him. These responses end up leaving the Grinch in a self fulfilling
prophecy. Life around him becomes proof that he’s right to be negative, closed
minded, opinionated and unhappy. One can almost see flowers wilting in his
presence. How can things ever change for the Grinch? His skepticism leaves
every positive encounter as merely a bid by someone to dupe him. He refuses to
know otherwise.
The great thing about this
analogy is that no one actually has a heart made of stone. The sum total of our
experiences is constantly changing and growing with every tick of the clock. We
are not our past. Our heart is not relegated to a life of unhappiness because
of the unfairness of life, or being dealt a rotten hand. No, our heart is
malleable, bendable. We must take care to stand up for our heart in times of
unjustness. We must not let our heart be abused or bullied. We must remember
that what comes from the spirit of our heart is the whole world at our feet and
that no one and nothing is worth giving that up.
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