Sitting in the Tension

Sometimes feelings can look really ugly. Our raw emotions can be intense and crudely unholy as we find ourselves wrestling with feelings that we don’t like and even some we wouldn’t want anyone to know about. Maybe we’re feeling like we’ve been cheated out of the life we thought we’d have, the one we’ve been planning for and dreaming of. Maybe we’re feeling jealous of friends who have the things we long for. Maybe we’re feeling like there’s just too much on us and we’re about to fall off the edge or like we want everyone around us to just go away for a while and leave us alone. Or maybe we’re feeling angry and that anger is, dare I say, directed at God. We feel He made a mistake in allowing our circumstances or that possibly He isn’t the good, loving God we once thought Him to be. Have you ever been there? I know I have. But one of the most healing things I’ve learned on this journey is that no matter how much I want to cover up these feelings, no matter how guilty I may feel for having them, I don’t have to hide them from God. He already knows I have them and He can handle every single one. 

After Justin died I had all sorts of these types of feelings and more. While I had an overwhelming peace that God had me, that He would stay by my side as I walked this path, emotions that were hard to deal with still reared their ugly heads at times and it was a lot to take. At first I tried to shove the less pretty ones away, trying to pretend they didn’t exist, but in time God showed me that there was no need to do that. That I was safe in sharing all of them with Him. I can’t tell you how much it helped me to know I could come to Him with any and every feeling I had and how much healing I received by doing exactly that.

I think a lot of times we feel like we have to come to God all “prettied up.” Like we have to approach Him with a smile on our face and complete gratitude on our lips. But one look at the Psalms shows us that God doesn’t expect that from us. Obviously we do need to cultivate a heart of gratitude and joy since a heart tuned to those things can truly change both our perspective and our attitude, but in order to get to that place we first have to be real and honest with God. We have to be willing to tell Him everything we are feeling because it is only after we have handed him our true, authentic selves and have poured out every single thought and feeling without regard, that He gives us healing and helps us begin to make our way to the other side. Sometimes the healing comes quickly and other times it takes a while, but healing does come. And in the meantime, we develop a deeper and richer relationship with our Father as we begin to realize that it’s okay to tell Him everything we feel. Even when it’s not so pretty.

Sitting in the tension of being honest with God.