The Heavy Heart

The human heart weighs between 9-11.0 ounces, but sometimes it feels like 100 lbs!  Having a heavy heart is like trying to walk across the shallow end of a swimming pool filled with mud.  You strain, strive and forge ahead, but you never seem to get beyond the first few steps.  It weighs you down mentally, physically, emotionally and even spiritually.  You become exhausted just trying to put one foot in front of the other.

Teenagers experience heavy hearts from break-up's.  Losing a parent, spouse, or child can make that swimming pool feel like it's filled with concrete instead of mud.  Social injustices and wrongs against the most innocent in society weigh down the hearts of those with any sense of mercy, or compassion.   You can experience a heavy heart when loved ones or friends are caught in the vicious cycle of addictions.  Chronic illness has certainly weighed down its fair share of human hearts.  Losing a job and facing serious financial pressure can add several pounds to the heart.

I don't think I've ever met a person over 25, who hasn't experienced one, or more heartbreaks in life.  None of us is immune to a heavy heart.  But some people seem to get stuck in the mud and are paralyzed by a heavy heart.  Others (the emotionally needy) wear a heavy heart like a badge of honor because they have found it can bring them a lot of attention, or sympathy.  Often spouses and family  enable these folks.  Instead of lightening their loved one's load they actually add more weight because of the cycle of dysfunction.

It's easy to tell someone with a heavy heart that they need to just,  "get over it!" But it's not that easy, especially if a lot of time has passed and they are drowning in years of unresolved grief, or pain.  We can listen to them, offer objective counsel, encourage and pray for them.  However, at some point they have to choose to let go, get help, or process it.  We can't make them and we can't "fix" it.  But there is One who can.  He said:

“Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me.² In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? ³ And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. ⁴ And you know the way to where I am going.” 
(John 14:1-4, ESV)

See our hearts don't have to be chronically heavy.  God's got this!  He is already working ahead of us.  Yes, I will probably experience a heavy heart many more times before I leave this world, but I don't have to drown in it.  Jesus has made a promise to His followers and not only do I believe Him, but He has never dropped the ball on a single promise He has ever made.  You can have a heavy heart.  It's ok and it's human, but don't let it define/shape you.  Ask God to help you be a "burden-bearer," and I promise the more you focus on helping to lighten the loads of others your own will seem lighter!