I Don’t Need Fixing
Why is having strong emotions so often equated with being dramatic?
Being emotional is often seen as a bad thing that needs fixing. Being emotional is often seen as a result of lacking faith. Being emotional is often considered a weakness.
Coming from someone with lifelong deep emotions… what a sad & incomplete understanding of emotions.
Emotions Can Tempt Wrongs… But They Can Only Tempt
The Bible is written with such rich emotions, even by male authors, no less, so why has it so commonly been twisted into such a strong conviction by certain people that strong emotions are wrong & should be avoided or squashed?
I get that there is always the fear of cultivating emotion-led faith, where you serve God mainly because you feel a spiritual high, versus serving Him the same regardless of how you are feeling, but that doesn’t make feeling… bad.
I think maybe because emotions make us vulnerable & feeling vulnerable is not always too pleasant. And, more notably, that vulnerability can set us up for attack. We can be tempted to doubt God… we can be tempted to dwell on the cause of the emotions versus turning to God in them… we can be tempted to give into despair… we can be tempted to react in sin—lashing out or blaming God or avoiding obedience to God… or growing a bad attitude. They can TEMPT us to shut down & grow bitter, but only can they tempt.
How Worship-Evoking It Can Be to Feel So Weak
But it’s not wrong to feel. It’s not even wrong to feel deeply. It’s not wrong to allow yourself that deep vulnerability of weakness.
In fact, what a worship-evoking thing it has the great potential to be… what a spur to pray & seek the riches of God’s Word…. What a blessing it can be to feel that very real need so deeply to your core—a reminder that you require something more than yourself.
Setting a Good Example Doesn’t Mean Having It Together All the Time
I get it. We want to feel “on our feet.” We want to feel strong & capable. We want to “be a good example.” We want to appear okay. We don’t want to feel so needy (as needy as we truly are).
But, as I say often about planning community church events, a good testimony is not necessarily that you ensure nothing ever goes wrong, but rather your response if something does go wrong.
So, we quote Scripture at emotions (reminding yourself of Truth in big emotions is a healthy habit, but it does not guarantee emotions away). We stuff it. We hide it. We pretty it up. We pretend. Or maybe we have just gotten so good at not letting ourselves feel it at all.
So, we try to find ways to avoid feeling so deeply… avoid feeling so out of control… avoid feeling so vulnerable.
Sometimes the Pain Is Unnamed
But sometimes the weight I feel has no name. It’s not from overthinking or from anxiety or from anything at all in particular. Just weight. And you know what—it feels good to let myself cry. I feel relieved. It pushes me to pray & let God sit with me in it, to give me peace despite the struggle.
I have gone through such intense spiritual attacks in certain seasons of my life, that I wanted to die because it felt like someone had taken about 20 weighted blankets & dropped them over my soul, like I was suffocating, but yet I was very aware of God still being in full control, whether He chose to leave the weight there or remove it. Crying from the pain, while praising God that I knew He somehow had a plan in the pain. So, personally, I saw that my deep, painful emotions were not present with sin–but yet they remained.
Let’s Not Assume More Than the Text Is Saying
I think we can look at stories like when everyone was freaking out on the boat in the storm as Jesus sleeps, seeing Him awake & rebuke the wind & waves to stillness & then rebuking the men for their lack of faith & think—“this must mean I should never feel struggle because it means I am worthy of rebuking for my own lack of faith.” But their problem in that storm wasn’t emotion—it was fearing the storm/natural occurrence more than the God Who controls those. God wasn’t implying a blanket rebuke against strong emotions here. (Mark 4:35-41)
Aside from seeing such rich emotions present in Scripture (the Bible), I know, from personal experience, how deep, rich emotions can be present with a very obvious lack of sin—aka, no continued dwelling on it or overthinking in place of prayer, no wanting to distrust God…. Just… pain.
Job Felt Deep Pain after Experiencing Deep Loss
“Then Job arose, tore his robe, and shaved his head; and he fell to the ground and worshiped. And he said:
“Naked I came from my mother’s womb and naked shall I return there. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; Blessed be the name of the Lord.”
In all this Job did not sin nor charge God with wrong.” Job 1:20-22
That is not an expression of calm, lacking emotion. He tore his clothes it hurt so much. He felt the hurt & full weight of it, he felt strong emotions, but determined to praise God IN his hurt.
Is It Only Acceptable When We Can “Adequately” Justify It?
And I think people understand when it’s something that seems reasonable: lose a loved one—grief, someone gets attacked—hurt, seeing an orphan—pain. If it makes sense to people, it seems acceptable, but only if you can justify WHY you feel so strongly. Only then. And sometimes only for as long as someone may feel it is appropriate.
And like that day in my car with my rhetorical 20 weighted blankets, not understanding at all why I felt such pain in my spirit, but feeling it so strongly, crying in private because I knew I wouldn’t be able to understand it enough to “justify” it to someone else… I knew God was right there in it with me, holding me together despite how much it hurt. He had me even when the pain didn’t stop or let up. He saw me, He knew my pain, He didn’t need me to justify it to wrap me in His compassion & love. To hold me. To be my CAN when I just couldn’t.
Do We Vet Deep Emotions before We’re Willing to Show Compassion?
Why do we feel the need to believe a feeling is worth feeling in order to be in the storm with someone? To love them by their side through it?
Not just “giving them a verse to think on” because you feel they’re being dramatic or maybe overreacting… but holding them through it even when it doesn’t make any sense to you or doesn’t seem a “level of emotional” that is justifiable in that moment.
As if we have to vet it as worthy of not “just being dramatic,” in order for it deserve our care & compassion?
Is it because it’s inconvenient? Uncomfortable? We don’t know how to fix what we can’t define? It doesn’t wrap up as nicely as we would like?
Why don’t we try just loving anyway? Repenting even–of our felt need to approve compassion….
Weakness Isn’t a Bad Thing… It’s a Reality
Emotions are vulnerable. They can make us feel really weak. But maybe that weakness isn’t so bad after all.
And maybe some of us are just weaker than others (I certainly feel I am because I feel so much when others seem to think I shouldn’t need to)… who feel more deeply than you do, so that it may not make sense to you, but is what it is, regardless of whether it makes sense.
I used to feel like my strong emotions were a curse. I used to beg that curse away. But, as I got older & was praying through one season of deep emotional pain I couldn’t explain away… I asked God, “Why did You make me this way? Why do I have to have the curse? I just want it to stop. Please–why?!?” And I felt a soft answer over my heart in the form of dawning understanding that in all those years with seasons of such deep hurting, they have made me live with constant recognition of my very real need of Him… always drawing me back to seek Him… to rely on Him instead of myself… that those heavy emotions were not at all a curse, but a very rich, beautiful BLESSING.
How Do You Respond?
How you respond to deep emotions is what matters. Don’t let that weakness make you pull back from or deny God. Don’t let it tempt you to use it as an excuse to avoid doing right. Don’t let it have power of you, but trust God to be your enough IN it.
Let that weakness draw you into the arms of Jesus… to wake you up to the needs & hurts of those around you, to show compassion… to be a light that even in the darkness, God is the light & He can be your sufficiency even when you feel none of your own.
Let those tears fall. Release the tension. And let it spur you to worship the God Who is enough even when you are not.
The Problem Is Not Emotions… But in Not Dealing with Them in a Healthy, God-Honoring Way
We need to maybe stop demonizing heavy emotions & start embracing them in a HEALTHY, God-pleasing way!
So many years of demonizing strong emotions & the problems that come from them are usually because the solution taught has so often been—“stop being dramatic…” instead of “let them help you better recognize & understand your very real need for God, through Jesus… & use them to point others to His strength as your enough in your weakness. Use them to glorify God!”
Draw near to Him in them!
Fix your focus on Truth!
Cling to Him as your help & hope!
Use them to proclaim His glory! His strength in your weakness!
All glory be to God Almighty, God of Heaven & Earth! God Who made us to feel as a way to engage in the world around us. Praise God in the storm!
Teach Them Not–“Conceal, Don’t Feel”
If you have a child who has deep emotions, don’t teach them to fear, mask, cover up, or avoid them (even the boys because boys are allowed to feel!)… teach them to engage with those emotions in a healthy, God-honoring way, as a tool to help them remember their need of God (to pray & to seek Him) & as an opportunity to see & show how God can be our enough when we can’t be.
There are so many verses in the Bible that call us to compassion, to bearing with one another in love, to bearing each other’s burdens, to loving one another, to showing grace… let us keep THOSE verses in mind when someone is bearing a burden we can’t see &/or don’t understand.
Grace upon grace, emulating the love & care of Jesus Christ in how we treat one another in those deep emotions that may make little sense to us.
And in those deep emotions, may it be a living reminder of your very real need for more than yourself… drawing you into the ever-loving care of Jesus.
Shine HOPE by turning to God in your deep emotions… by not allowing them to control or tempt you… by being a light for God’s strength in your weakness… by showing compassion to others facing emotions we don’t understand… & by teaching the next generation how to feel deeply in a way that leads them back to HIM as their HOPE.
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