When the Heart Finds Its Voice
What our unguarded words may be trying to tell us
Welcome to Tuesday’s reflection.
Each weekday, paid subscribers receive an exclusive reflection designed to offer a thoughtful pause amid ordinary life. My hope is that these brief pieces create a little space for curiosity, contemplation and wonder amid the noise of the day.
Some readers have told me they also enjoy having these reflections away from the screen, which is one reason I also collected them into a paperback: Sacred & Secular: Finding God in the Ordinary. Amazon UK or USA.
I am fortunate enough to live in a fairly harmonious household, but with two hormonal teenagers, tempers can sometimes fray when I least expect it. A snappy remark seems to come from nowhere, or there is a sudden outburst that makes me stop and wonder what on earth I have done to provoke such anger.
I have slowly learned that, very often, it is not really about anything I have done. Living in our world as a teenager is tough. There are pressures, anxieties and disappointments that I know nothing about. What sounds like anger directed towards me may have begun somewhere else entirely: in a difficult day at school, an awkward exchange with a friend, anxiety about the future, or simply the exhaustion of trying to work out who you are.
That does not mean hurtful words do not matter; they do. Words can loiter in our minds long after the emotion that produced them has passed. Yet I am learning not to hear every abrupt sentence as the whole truth about the person speaking it.
Sometimes the words coming from someone’s mouth are carrying news from a part of their life I cannot see.
Perhaps that is why I have started hearing Jesus’ words in Matthew 15 rather differently. He seems to understand that whatever comes out of our mouths usually began somewhere else.
