I wish more than anything this were possible. I have long wished this could be so and have always found this to be one of my favorite Proverbs. My mother, if she knew, would be so happy that I have been reading the Bible tonight. It is so weird how sometimes, because of things I have read and heard from strangers and from people in my own life, that I feel like I do not have the right to be both gay and Christian.
Wanting to guard my heart would be the same no matter whether I was gay or not. I have been struggling in my feelings now for a few years on and then things recently grew more complicated when I started getting attached, in a different way, to a different person while also still feeling how I do about the first person.
There are so many ways to care about someone and still get hurt because you got too attached and they did not. It can be romantic or platonic, familial or work-related, no matter what the context, letting your heart open up to friendship or love is still risking getting hurt very painfully and I do not think you have to be cynical to believe that.
But wishing you had better guarded your heart only after your heart got too attached is like trying to put the toothpaste back in the tube after it has popped out or closing the barn door after the horse has already fled.
I do not know why, exactly, but I find it kind of sad-funny that the very book that has been used to vilify and hate gay people is the very book that is comforting me right now.
New International Version
Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.
New Living Translation
Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life.
English Standard Version
Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.
New American Standard Bible
Watch over your heart with all diligence, For from it flow the springs of life.
King James Bible
Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.
Holman Christian Standard Bible
Guard your heart above all else, for it is the source of life.
International Standard Version
Above everything else guard your heart, because from it flow the springs of life.
NET Bible
Guard your heart with all vigilance, for from it are the sources of life.
Aramaic Bible in Plain English
Keep your heart with all caution because from it is the outgoing of life.
GOD'S WORD® Translation
Guard your heart more than anything else, because the source of your life flows from it.
JPS Tanakh 1917
Above all that thou guardest keep thy heart; For out of it are the issues of life.
New American Standard 1977
Watch over your heart with all diligence,
For from it flow the springs of life.
No comments:
Post a Comment