Hidden in Their Hearts

Most of the men and women who move about us from day to day are carrying their share of trouble and disappointment and sorrow hidden within their hearts; and we, with unseeing eyes, often walk roughshod over them, not knowing their cares, not understanding their burdens. So often we misjudge those whose situation and circumstances we do not know.

Those whom we meet in an impersonal way in the places we patronize and those whom we pass in all the crowded ways and walks of life may seem at times to be distant, to be sullen, preoccupied, impolite or inattentive to our wants and wishes. And we, with our absence of understanding, often ignore their heavy hearts, their troubled thoughts, their sorrows, their pressing problems, and the weight of their worries.

Every man’s burdens are important to him. Every man’s worries affect his attitude and his work. No man is a mere machine. And yet sometimes it seems that we expect the same kind of mechanical constancy from a man that we do from a machine.

If we want the answer to why people are as they are and why they do what they sometimes do, we shall need to know more about what is weighing on their thoughts or what is hidden in their hearts. A quarrel, an illness at home, worry about a wayward youngster, a personal disappointment, apprehension about an ailment, anxiety about money matters, friction, frustration all can and do alter the attitudes and efficiency and outlook and actions of all of us.

And if the men we meet, the people we patronize, those who serve us and those with whom we associate, and those whom we casually see in public and other places if they aren’t always as it seems to us they should be, there may be some real reason that we would readily understand if we only knew enough. At least it would be well to withhold judgment and to apply patience and to refrain from unkind comment and hasty conclusions where we are not sufficiently informed where we are somewhat short of understanding as to the thoughts and hearts and feelings of our fellows. God grant us the wisdom to withhold judgment when we don’t know enough.