Humble Roots by Hannah Anderson

Author:Hannah Anderson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Moody Publishers
Published: 2016-01-23T05:00:00+00:00

My Portion Forever

“To preserve Sweet, Pot, and Medicinal herbs and flowers, they should be gathered when in bloom, thoroughly dried and put up in tight boxes or jars, till wanted for use.” —The Shaker Book of the Garden, 1843

By summer’s end, Nathan’s prediction proved correct. My garden healed. The basil leafed out into a bush; the cilantro grew and eventually went to seed; both varieties of parsley produced more than I could ever use. What began so disastrously turned into a garden of plenty. We made mint jelly, dried oregano for the winter, and slipped sprigs of lavender between the sheets in the linen closet. No longer a source of judgment, these herbs—sometimes sweet, sometimes bitter—became a source of beauty and blessing.

So, too, when humility frees us from the oppression of our emotions, when we finally learn that “God is greater than our heart,” it also frees us to enjoy the depth and variety of our inner life. We are free to enter into our emotions, letting them do what God intends for them to do: draw us back to Himself.

Because our emotions are powerful, it’s tempting to simply shut them down or deny them like the ancient Stoics would. We know the danger that comes when we are led by them, how easily we lash out in anger or manipulate others. But simply controlling our emotions doesn’t make us humble, or healthy, people. Instead, humility calls us to something better. Humility calls us to feel deeply precisely because we know that “God is greater than our hearts.”

Because “God is greater than your heart,” you can trust Him to care for you when your heart breaks through disappointment or suffering. Because “God is greater than your heart,” you can trust Him to rejoice with you in times of joy and success. Because “God is greater than your heart,” you can trust Him to correct and lead you through doubt and fear. Because “God is greater than your heart,” He can handle the depth of your emotions. He is not afraid of them, and as you bring them back to Him, you shouldn’t be afraid of them either. In this sense, humility does not shut down your inner life; humility redeems it.

So that, with the psalmist, we can finally and confidently proclaim, “My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”19

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1. This phrase has been attributed to both Charlemagne and his tutor, Alcuin.

2. Clinical research is still limited, but the University of Maryland Medical Center notes that “some experts believe our sense of smell may play a role [in aromatherapy]. The ‘smell’ receptors in your nose communicate with parts of your brain (the amygdala and hippocampus) that serve as storehouses for emotions and memories. When you breathe in essential oil molecules, some researchers believe they stimulate these parts of your brain and influence physical, emotional, and mental health.” http://umm.edu/health/medical/altmed/treatment/aromatherapy.

3. Thomas Dixon, “‘Emotion’: The History of a Keyword in Crisis,” Emotion Review 4 (2012): 338–44.

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