I often joke that people in the South feel justified in saying anything about anyone as long as they follow it with “bless your heart.” This includes saying something rude, negative, or inappropriate to someone’s face as well. Sadly, some people thrive on gossip and want to weigh in on the problems of others.
I distinctly remember a few years of my life that were particularly hard. My parents had divorced and then both remarried, and I was also dealing with a lot of self-image issues. Any time I stepped in the Dollar General of my hometown, it was as if I had entered Truvy’s Beauty Spot on Steel Magnolias. Someone I knew would inevitably be there and ask about my parents or comment on how I had lost too much weight. And then that person would end the one-sided conversation with a “bless your heart.”
No doubt, these experiences have jaded me. They have made me not want to ask anyone about anything remotely personal or even enter a small town Dollar General, for that matter. In fact, the last time someone cornered me about a family member’s dire state, I was flat out rude. Looking back, that wasn’t the best reaction on my part, but I had developed a severe case of Bless Your Heart Burnout.
While you won’t find that condition on Web MD, as a life-long Southern Belle, I can assure you that it’s a real thing. You can treat it quickly, as I did by snapping back to the guy who interrogated me at the gym, or you can ignore it. Neither of these home remedies works well over time though. Snapping back will result in you acting just as awful as the so-called heart blesser. Ignoring the problem won’t work either since any problem that goes unattended for too long will just resurface at a later date. Ignore it too many times, and you will eventually find yourself joining in a heart-blessing contest, which nobody ever wins.
So, with those two options off the table, another Southern cliché just might do the trick. “All that’s left to do is pray.” This phrase always had humored and annoyed me at the same time. Shouldn’t prayer be our first defense in any situation? Of course, it should, but praying for people who annoy us is much easier said than done. The natural human response is to fight gossip with gossip.
I think back to all the times I ran out of Dollar General with tears welling up in my eyes or the time I clapped back at someone on the running track. Instead, I should have given these matters to God. A simple, “I don’t feel like talking about this,” would have sufficed. Granted, I know some of the heart blessers would’ve just kept at it. But if they had, it then would be appropriate to simply walk away . . . without crying.
If we step back and look outside of our personal perspective for a minute, it’s easy to realize that heart blessers have a disease as well. People who feel the need to cross personal boundaries on a regular basis or who make an effort to gossip probably have a whole bushel of issues. That’s because the very people who thrive on what’s going on in the lives of everyone else are often not content with their own lives. Therefore, they are the ones who really need to be blessed—through prayer, not fake sympathy.
As long as we live in a fallen world, there will be hard times. And whether through social media or at the local discount store, people will want to comment on personal issues. We cannot change these awkward situations, but we can change how we react to them. So, as one Southerner to another, I challenge you (and me) to ask God to bless the next person who blesses your heart—even if it’s “your mama and ’em.”
About the Author: Kaci Lane Hindman can best be described as an unconventional Southern Belle with a sarcastic sense of humor. She loves writing, Alabama, and writing about Alabama. She is married to the walking definition of a high-tech redneck, and together they have two young children.
