This is not for you. It is for me.

The answer…well, it’s COMPLICATED. 

What’s my quick answer? 

NO!!

Or at least not the way our human nature makes us feel like we can.

Feelings can be so overwhelming and seem SO true; they can completely overpower us! Our bodies, minds, and actions can all be controlled and manipulated by our feelings.We want to follow them first because they often appear first while we are navigating through life, and they came from us so we can trust them right? 

Our culture does not help…”Follow your heart” or “Go with your gut,” it says.  Making it seem as though a good feeling or a bad feeling is enough to guide us through life.

But…Can we really depend on our feelings to direct us in our everyday actions and decision making? 

As a woman FULL of FEELINGS, I can tell you with 100% certainty that following this advice would be a complete TRAINWRECK and result (typically) in regret and embarrassment. Anyone been there? Something you entertained in your mind became something that emotionally drove you to act.  I know I have TOO many times! (Insert facepalm here!)

So… should we NOT listen to our feelings AT ALL?

Also, WRONG!

God gave our feelings to us. They are EXTREMELY important and should not be neglected or ignored! Feelings are completely necessary to alert us that something is going on and we need to pay attention! God uses our feelings to grab us, to make us think, seek Him, and act. 

What happens when we ignore or avoid them?

In an effort not to be crazy, I have done this MANY times. I try to act like what I am feeling isn’t there or distract myself with a task, TV, social media, or a hobby.

In my experience, the feeling feeds my mind which creates scenarios/ideas that are not true. From there, my thoughts breed worry, discontentment, resentment, or anger. The feelings then grow and fester into something really ugly. They start to control me and pretty soon, some feelings have manifested themselves into a full on ugly, crazy sin monster! 

Today, I have been flooded with feelings, and my chest and gut are TENSE! My mind is swirling, and I feel emotional as I think about all the “what ifs” floating around in my mind. 

You know what that tells me? I need time to think, write, pray, and figure out what caused this. 

I have to ask myself, “What am I actually feeling/thinking?” “What am I really upset about?” “What is TRUE about the situation?” and “What does God’s word say about it?” That’s why we have to take what is thrown at us and work it through this system. 

Scripture says to “[cast] down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.” 2 Corinthians 10:5

This isn’t easy. You are stopping yourself from reacting immediately after you have feelings. 

• You feel something in your body that immediately goes to your mind, and you STOP there! 

• You do the HARD work of being honest with yourself and God. 

• You give yourself time to calm down and understand the truth about what is going on and allow God to inform how and when you will react. 

BUT… enjoy this reassurasure. Let this truth wash over you. 

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.  Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.”  Philippians 4:6-9

Is this hard? OH MY GOODNESS, YES!!! Is it humbling? YOU BET! Is it worth all the time and sometimes tears…ABSOLUTELY! 

There is NOTHING like the PEACE of God! Drink it up; it’s abundant, and it’s a free gift from God as often as you seek Him. 

When you are in a dark place….depression, grief, unending pain, it feels like a cloud follows you around.

Those of you that have ever been there know what I mean. Everything you do is cloudy, and I do mean everything….A trip to the grocery store, being with friends or family, going to work, even a trip to your favorite destination or doing your FAVORITE activity. Nothing makes the cloud leave completely. Sometimes the cloud floats to one side or the other and a sense of relief may come for a moment or an hour or so, but it always comes back. Something seems to always remind you of your pain, hurt, sadness, and you are right back where you were.

I felt this way for what I considered “forever.”

I was the type of person that could bounce back from hard days or situations quickly. Give me and hour or so and I would be back to my happy self. And if it was REALLY bad, I might need to sleep on it, and I would wake up feeling so much better.

I have learned that is NOT always the case.

When really terrible things happen, there can be a storm that comes and stays WAY longer than you might have planned for it to.

SO…that was true for me. For months and months and months, I couldn’t shake my sadness. Everything reminded me of my heartbreak and shock. I was a walking Eeyore, and I felt bad for anyone that had to be around me. I always talked about my horrible situation. I would cry anytime/anywhere. I couldn’t do my job or be a good friend. My head was foggy. I was sick at my stomach all the time.

My grief was all consuming, and I was fixated on “getting out of it.”

Would I ever be my happy self again? Would I ever have energy and an appetite again? Could I ever care about another person again? Actually, will I ever care about anything again? Will I be sad and hurt forever?

I was mad that I couldn’t bounce back or snap out of it. I wasn’t talking to God at this point either. I was numb. I had so many feelings that I had no feelings. Have you ever cried so much that you couldn’t breathe and literally couldn’t cry another tear? Or not eaten for so many days that you had zero energy to walk across your house? I wanted to disappear. That was the only relief I could imagine. My body had felt so many things that it got to a point where it accepted the grief. It started to function in that place of grief as if it were normal. It was my new normal. I was just sad.

Once I accepted it, I started to think of it as if I had a rain cloud that followed me everywhere I went. I accepted that this was a stage I was in, and it would hopefully pass at some point. People told me it would, but I only half believed them. I thought it might stay forever, honestly. I went through my life… raising my child, doing my job, rebuilding my finances, as a complete sad, robot person. I call it “survival mode.” I was surviving; that’s it. ( I will do another post about this later called “The Next Right Thing…”). But for now, I want to give you the nugget of hope that I received from the Lord from this time period.

I started to realize that the cloud wasn’t all bad.

I started to realize that grief and sadness is a VERY real part of healing and that God wants us to sit in that place. SO much so, that He meets us there and cries with us. Grieving is Godly and a REAL HUGE part of walking with God. (I will do another post about this in the future called “Why are Christians Scared of Grief?”). But for now, I want to focus on that storm that followed me and the raindrops that wouldn’t stop.

I wrote this below in the middle of my storm. I feel very much now that it was a gift from God. A piece of encouragement that gave me permission to cry, scream, cuss, and be sad for as long as I needed to.

I wrote this on November 2, 2019 in the notes on my cell phone. Ha!

“When I remember the truth, I rest and don’t fear, but this cloud still follows me. Sometimes there is lightning and thunder; other times it’s just dark; sometimes it is foggy; every once and awhile I think I see the sun, and other times it just rains and rains. The raindrops mix with my tears and a stream forms. Is the rain cleansing me of my pain or adding to it? Both. It does both. What I know is I can’t escape it, control it, or stop it. I have to live through it. Cry through it. Scream through it. Beg for it to leave me. 

 I believe the raindrops are the tears of a savior that understands my pain and He cries with me, over me. It’s sad, but He cries knowing how it ends and the hope that is coming. For now, I sit under a raining cloud covered in my Savior’s tears, knowing that I cry because it’s sad and hurts, but my hope is in the Lord and He knows how this storm ends. And it will end.”

God understands at a level that no one else can and sits with you and cries. Those tears and pain as necessary to bring real healing. Jesus knew this first hand when he begged God to take away His fate on the cross that would bring ultimate healing; God didn’t take away that cup from Jesus, and as much as I wanted my “cup” to pass, God didn’t take it away either. I had to walk through it because God had healing on the other side for me too.

Now, I can say, “Thank you Lord for making me sit in that dark, hard place for so long, so that I could experience the depth of your healing, love, security, and a closeness with you that I wouldn’t trade for anything in the world.”

Okay, let me start with this…I’m a human. God made us to have feelings. They are important, but gee whiz, they can be crazy out of control. When you are going through something devastating, you feel so many different things. Guilt, shame, hurt, betrayal, embarrassment, sadness, doubt….this list could go on AWHILE…If you don’t learn to deal with your feelings, I promise you that they will OVERTAKE YOU and make you do and think CRAZY stuff.

I am a feeler….I feel too much and in the past, my feelings dictated a lot of my actions. I constantly worried about what other people thought of me or my family, or how I measured up at my job. This made me work myself to death, stay late at work, and be somewhat disconnected at home. I would replay my day at work and relive every moment, hoping to get a good feeling about every interaction I had, and if I had a bad interaction, I would work to try fix it: Text or call someone, plan to meet with them later, send an email followup about our conversation. I couldn’t stop…

I wanted to be loved by everyone, all the time, everywhere. I wanted everyone in my family to get along but more than that ( I am embarrassed to admit) I wanted everyone to think my family was getting along. I worked so hard to resolve conflict and if I couldn’t, I covered it up well enough to where no one knew it was there. (Do you even know how exhausting that is?) The funny part was that I worked pretty hard at it and actually, at times, felt like I was succeeding. Ha!

You know why I was doing that, because my identity came from all that. My interactions with others, my performance at work, the good friendships I had, all told me I was “okay” (or a lot of the time “not okay”). It was a rollarcoaster. When I had a bad interaction or failed at something, I had to work to fix it, or I was LOST. I didn’t have value or a solid sense of self. Those things told me I was “good” or “not good.” If I didn’t fix them, I wasn’t good anymore.

My whole view of myself only came from what I got from other people.

Then one day, it ALL fell apart. I lost all of it. My family, my security, my finances, my sanity…but more importantly…my identity. I was paralyzed.

It wasn’t a bump in the road; the road was gone, and I was all alone with no one around….totally lost and BY MYSELF. I had no where to turn. I was sick…terrified…I couldn’t tell anyone I was hurting or devastated. It was too embarrassing. I had to keep doing what I had always done, fake it. No one can know I’m not okay, because I will actually not be okay then. How twisted is that?

I was numb and sick.

I actually stopped eating because I couldn’t and started replaying everything I could have done to fix the complete and utter devastation. I blamed myself. I blamed others. I sought out to find the truth about why it happened. I wanted a reason. Something or someone to blame. I did this for months. Isolated myself and lived trying to find a reason or a solution. I wore myself completely out trying to find the truth or a reason. I was desperately trying to grab something that could help me make sense of the senseless.

It was a complete shattering of my identity. I was gone. I didn’t know who I was anymore. I doubted who I was before. I was scattered into a million tiny pieces and did not know when I could possibly be put back together.

This sounds bad, right? Well, it was, but God met me there…..in the lowest, saddest, darkest place I had ever been. I had tried everything. Nothing was working.

I was at the complete end of myself.

A friend reminded me at this time in my life when I am at my weakest, Christ will be the strongest. I thought to myself…”Well, if Christ is ever going to be strong, that would be now.” God felt far away from me because I had moved far away from him. I was trying to control everything in my life to create a sense of security around me, and it all failed. I didn’t believe God would show up now. I had really blown it, and I felt nothing.

I was lost, having frequent panic attacks, paralyzed in grief, alone, and everything had been striped away.

If Christ was ever going to be big in my life, it was going to be now. I had nothing left. I was done. The amazing truth for me was that God wasn’t.

He was going to take my pile of nothing and rebuild it into something beautiful.