Tainted Heart

I had a dream this week and part of it consisted of me speaking with a man who I did not recognize but at one point during the conversation, he looked at me and said I was a tainted heart. All I remember is that I was struck speechless and didn’t know how to respond.

The next thing I remember is that I woke up and I couldn’t get it out of my mind and was bothered by it to be honest. After a while, I found myself on Google and did a search for the meaning of tainted heart. Of course, you can imagine all the results I received, amongst them, results for the song Tainted Love which has never been on my playlist of favorite songs.

In the midst of the search results, I came across a link for a daily devotional titled The Tainted Heart. Of course, it immediately got my attention, and for good reason. It spoke of the prompting that we receive from God when we need to deal with certain areas of our lives that we choose to overlook. As soon as I read it, I could relate to its explanation and began to reflect on the ways my heart is tainted and how to eliminate what has taken root. If there is something that is brought to my attention that I don’t feel like dealing with, I will convince myself that I don’t have time for it and set it aside in hopes that it will fade away in my ignorance.

Burying things always have a way of resurfacing and more times than not, there isn’t a warning. Just a tone of a conversation or text, mood, attitude, or look can set it off and suddenly there’s a spontaneous combustion. A fireworks show is on display and if anyone has the unfortunate luck to be a spectator, they’re left with the anticipation of when the smoke is going to clear. It eventually does clear, and then it is as if nothing happened, but the residual effect remains lingering until it is dealt with.

My hope in reading this devotion is that I’m not only reading the words but applying their principles in order to cure this tainted heart.