OK, Here's What I Used It For

Thanks for having such a stinking blast with us over that ridiculous celebrity look-alike thing. You guys made me laugh until I nearly choked and threw up in my mouth. Here's what it was about: I was teaching what I consider to be a pretty profound truth out of Proverbs 14:10. It says "Each heart knows its own bitterness, and no one else can share its joy." Scripture doesn't contradict Scripture so, needless to say, it doesn't mean we can't sympathize and even empathize with one another and bear each other's burden. In fact, we are commanded to do exactly that. We're told to laugh with those who laugh and weep with those who weep. (Romans 12:15)

In Proverbs 14:10, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Solomon was giving us insight into something we've all experienced but perhaps never quite understood. Two women of exactly the same spiritual maturity, marital status and age can get the same diagnosis and their hearts process it in completely different ways. Two believing women with nearly identical circumstances could have miscarriages at exactly the same point in a pregnancy and yet respond to it as polar opposites. Two women can make exactly the same salary and be exactly the same age and go to exactly the same church and have exactly the same friends yet respond to their singleness at 38 years of age profoundly differently. The point of the look-alike illustration is that we could Google every single bit of our physiological and psychological data, life traumas and challenges and perhaps come up a dozen other Americans that should match us then meet for lunch, hash it all out, and walk to our cars thinking, "I don't even think SHE gets me." And you'd probably be right. You see, somebody may have all your same circumstances but nobody has your heart. It is completely singled out before the One who formed it in His hands and said, "Let there be life." And there was.

If we're blessed indeed, we can find people who can relate but the more we come to know them, the more we'd see our differences and only be left with a deeper sense of isolation. There is ONE who totally gets you. Just one. Yes, we need human support. And, yes, hearts were created to be shared horizontally as well as vertically but no one can see into the grand canyon of your emotional being but God. That's why we'll never be okay if, in our deepest, most riveting hurts, we do not turn to Him and let Him completely and intimately tend to us. I am a firm believer in Godly counseling but the best of counselors should point you to the only One who is still there at 3:00 AM when you toss and turn and think you may not live till morning. St. Augustine described God as "interior intimo meo." Deeper in me than I am in myself. God gets you when YOU don't even get you. He doesn't just love you. He loves your heart. Your broken, misshapen, road-weary heart. And mine. Let Him in. Let Him tend. There is SomeOne who really does understand. He is the Lord who heals us.