Heartache

Proverbs holds no prisoners while directly, yet humbly revealing the truth. It’s not the cold truth. Truth is never cold, not really. Truth is vibrant, warm - even blazing hot - teeming with life, but never cold. It is a lie, or a partial truth, which is still a lie, that is cold. But the truth can come to you like a warm, gentle breeze or like a hot coal placed squarely on your head. But truth doesn’t come with icicles dangling off of it. Now, it has always fascinated me how succinctly the author of Proverbs can convey such an enormous amount of truth: “Even in laughter the heart may ache…” (Prov. 14:13). At first, our tendency is to kneejerk against this premise. But after a very short survey of the soul, it is self-evident that emotive states can be experienced simultaneously, especially when one is primarily external and one primarily internal, though I think there is room for a plethora of simultaneous emotions internally, and quite possibly externally, though they may be construed in translation in the latter variety. Nonetheless, we have all likely experienced the crushing weight of grief, depression, ‘soul agony’, while being in the presence of a friend or crowd that is generally in the mood of merriment and our external faculties are compelled to participate, even if our heart is not fully in the moment. This external participation can even be genuine, as perhaps the conversation or joke was truly laughable and you truly found it so. Though this does not diminish the undercurrent of pain in the heart that may be ebbing below the surface, and indeed the ripples and bubbling of laughter on the top of the stream have little to no effect on the deeper undercurrent that is present in the soul. The inverse of emotions and heart states can be true as well - that is, genuine joy and lightheartedness can be interrupted or superimposed by momentary sadness - however, I think the formerly discussed is more common. There was a Man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. Not only does he know ours, he experienced this super-positioning of emotions Himself. Thus, not only can he resonate and sympathize with us in our weakness, He can bear our deepest griefs on His shoulders, and carry them far, far away.