You Poked My Heart

You Poked My Heart

We all see the concept of heart as unique and different. We use it to describe the core of the matter, and even use phrases that describe it’s purpose across many areas.

It’s as big as all outdoors…
It’s easily broken…
Love comes from the heart…
It’s a cold heart…
Big-hearted…
In my heart of hearts…
Speak from the heart…

You know, “that’s what it’s all about…” Everything comes from the heart! “In my heart of hearts…”.

There is a beautiful little clip on YouTube (click here) with two little kids arguing about the water falling out of the sky – one says it’s raining, another says it’s sprinkling. The one that says it’s sprinkling is defending his position because his mom told him that it was sprinkling.

They are about 3 years old and there is the cutest little argument running back and forth. It’s not just the cuteness of the kids, but it’s the ending statement by the “sprinkling” kid…You have to watch the clip to the end. It’s only 2 minutes long. Faster than a commercial break during election season…

I’ll wait here, come back and finish reading after you watch.
Okay…. Need the link again? Here it is… (click here)

Okay… I assume you watched it. Without spoiling the phrase, for just a moment, consider how this little kid felt the wound of a physical poke, but then his words really strike home. You heard it and you felt the wound as he said, “You poked me in the heart.”

How often have we been hurt in the heart about some situation or something someone said. We may be tough, or cute, on the outside, but the wound we received is deep. Most wounds come from those closest to us. Even if there is a physical representation of the hurt, there is something deeper that goes to the very source of our hurt.

It was Jesus who spoke these words:

It’s amazing how we want to “speak from the heart” and yet, possibly, the heart contains all the wicked and good thoughts of people around us. Everything has poured into our very core as we soak up what others think or say. We are “pierced to the heart” when we are wounded by another, yet uplifted when we are cared for by another with a huge heart.

In fact, we think of the heart as the seat of our emotions. Regardless of how we address something with our outside voice, it is the inside voice that whispers in our ear the true heart of the matter! Regardless of what you say with your lips, your heart holds the truest picture of how you feel about something or someone.

And what you have on the inside will overwhelm the outside. You cannot keep the matters of the heart hidden. Too easily you will speak one way and the heart of the matter another way will gush out another way. When our heart is full of potentially negative things, we must root out the heart of the matter and find out what the real problem might be. Why? We need the heart to be clean and pure.

Our outside life is led by the heart. It is really the “heart of the matter” that truly matters. I treasure family but feel wounded when there is turmoil in the family. That can be my biological family as well as my church family. I want to have good thoughts about everyone, and yet I struggle with how to best to apply my heart. If I let my heart speak, then I may unintentionally wound, but sometimes wounding opens up to let the heart and let some healing take place…

I think this is the true treasure we are all looking for. Healing of our heart. Why? When our senses fail us, it’s what rests in the core of our being that will get us through the moment.

“The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched – they must be felt with the heart.” ~Helen Keller

Well, you may say it’s because of her limitations that she can focus on only what’s unseen or touched, but consider this for a moment. The truth of the matter lies that we spend time on what we treasure the most.