the heart

Who has ever truly known the human heart? Who has quantified the magnitudes of the sorrow, pain, and strife that it is made to bear, and determine how much burden it can endure before it lets up? Or who could measure its girth when it swells with joy, love, and hope, and then describe in the most precise way the ecstasy it feels?

Certainly not the heart’s owner. For in its deceitfulness, the heart can conceal its true state even to the one for whom it beats. Its chambers are ensconced with deep secrets, some too intimate to be shared even in the softest of whispers to the most trusted ear. Its walls have known bliss that hints of a kind too otherworldly to be fully apprehended and contained. Its undulations are too erratic for any mind to make sense of in their entirety.

Yet the heart is always laid bare to its Maker – who alone deciphers the cryptic messages of its pulsation; who alone sees the reasons behind its ever-changing rhythms; who alone understands the roots that underlie its conflicting affections. In His absolute familiarity with the heart – not the least baffled by its intricacies nor daunted by its darkness – the Maker loves graciously and pursues relentlessly to captivate it for Himself.

For only when the heart learns to beat in sync with its Maker’s own heart can it begin to faithfully endure, fully love, and be truly known.

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.
–Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing