When Your Heart Tells You Things Your Mind Does Not Know

There is this phrase, cited by a thoughtful friend: “…when your heart tells you things your mind does not know.”1 All of us have impressions, promptings, sometimes a sense of warning; an intuition, or awareness, the source of which we do not always know. We often have to trust our hearts, along with the facts we face.

Life isn’t merely a mechanical calculator or a slide rule situation. There is an inner spirit; feelings; conscience, convictions; things we know are there; things we know are real; things we can’t put in a test tube. Love is one of them. Faith is another; a sense of right and wrong; sometimes a sense of urgency; sometimes a sense assurance. There is so much that can’t be physically touched, so much that can’t be mechanically calculated.

Parents often have impressions pertaining to their children. And children often tease parents to let them do things that had better not be done: “Why can’t I do this? Why can’t I go there? Why? Why?” There are questions that parents often cannot answer with full satisfaction, except that they feel it, they know it, with an inner sense of certainty.

As we live for it, wisdom comes from many sources, both within and outside ourselves. And children often have to trust parents, and know that their hearts tell them things their minds do not know. Parents are not perfect, not infallible, but inspiration, the guidance that comes with prayerful pleading, brings warnings, promptings, impressions from beyond our sight and sound, which no one should stubbornly ignore.

Beyond all that we can weigh and measure, beyond all the tangibles that we can touch, there are influences and forces within and outside ourselves that we well would pay attention to. As Shakespeare said it: “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”2 And, so, beloved young people, be patient with parents when they counsel, when they are concerned—when the heart tells things the mind does not know.