allowing myself to feel. is hard work.
((i wrote this in march 2009. found it today. i remember being there. & i'm not anymore. but. think i'll always wrestle with not wanting to feel. always fight my natural tendencies to internalize, shut off my heart, run emotion through the filter of logicness. force my heart to obey my head. some things are easier to be biblical [and human] about than others. i know as the Lord grows me, it'll be easier. maybe someday it can be a strength? idk.))
3.19.09
“...We may know the right answer. And yet we don’t know it. It is a hard answer. But we make it sound like a pat answer. God sets about a long slow answering. But we try to make it a quick fix. His answer insists on being lived out over time and into the particulars. We act as if just saying the right words makes it so. God’s answer insists on changing you into a different kind of person. But we act as if some truth, principle, strategy, or perspective might simply be incorporated into who we already are. God personalizes his answer on hearts with uncanny flexibility. But we turn it into a formula: “If you just believe__________.” If you just do_______. If you just remember_____.” No important truth ever contains the word “just” in the punch line.”
“If you do not feel the weight or knife-edge of what is happening, you are a stone, not a human being. Image-bearers of God are not impervious. ”
3.19.09
“...We may know the right answer. And yet we don’t know it. It is a hard answer. But we make it sound like a pat answer. God sets about a long slow answering. But we try to make it a quick fix. His answer insists on being lived out over time and into the particulars. We act as if just saying the right words makes it so. God’s answer insists on changing you into a different kind of person. But we act as if some truth, principle, strategy, or perspective might simply be incorporated into who we already are. God personalizes his answer on hearts with uncanny flexibility. But we turn it into a formula: “If you just believe__________.” If you just do_______. If you just remember_____.” No important truth ever contains the word “just” in the punch line.”
“Honesty is able to feel the weight of things that arouse fear and dismay. The problem is not that we feel troubled by trouble and pained by pain. Something hurtful should hurt. The problem is that God slides away into irrelevance when we obsess over suffering or compulsively avoid it.”
-David Powlison.
i think God wants me to be honest. to stop being afraid that natural sorrow will become sinful bitterness, doubt, or self-pity before i have a chance to fight it. i'm pretty sure that He who called me is strong enough to keep me from falling into darkness.
-David Powlison.
pretty much. there it is. every day i am grateful for the gospel. every day there is hope and joy present because of the KiNDNESS of God. but some days there is also weight. i want to be a stone some days. i am uncomfortable with the amount of emotion in my heart and how it works its way out to my sleeve. i am not used to being near tears so much. i want to flip off the emotions switch, to go back to the comfort zone of keeping it all neatly locked away.
guess what.
i don't think that is what God wants.
Comments
Abi, amen! God created emotions love, of course He can handle them. NOt only can, He WANTS to. He wants you to bring your burdens so He can care for and carry you. =)
andrew, yep. i've learned the hard way that when i pretend i can't feel, it's a breeding ground for sin. it's like giving sin a back door wide open,rathar than God being able to use it to work out good fruit in me. teaching me to take every care to Him. & it also gets in the way of me loving others. it's harder to relate and love people where they are if i can't get in it with them. aaannd now i'm rambling and not making sense...sorry!!