Feel It

Many of us avoid our emotions like the plague! We’ve spent a lifetime finding ways to bury the hurt, fear, anger, and shame, and we’ve become quite skilled at it. Some of us are sure that if we let our true feelings come to the surface, we couldn’t control them. We believe they’d be like a squeezed tube of toothpaste: it’s out, and there’s no way to get it back in! Others try to convince themselves that “good Christians don’t get angry, never feel hurt, and always rise above their shame.”

The psalmists are brutally honest about their perceptions and emotions, ranging from the highest heights of praise and thanksgiving to the lowest lows of despair and doubt. For instance, in only two verses David complains four times that God is taking way too long to answer his prayer.

“How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and day after day have sorrow in my heart? How long will my enemy triumph over me?"

—Psalm 13:1–2

We’re wounded in relationships, and we’re healed in relationships. To become more authentic, we need to find at least one authentic, safe person to be our friend and guide on the new path. It may be a counselor, a sponsor, a mentor, or a friend who has been down this road before us. This person will invite us to be increasingly honest about our anxiety, pain, and shame (because we’ll continue to resist for a while), challenge us to see things through God’s eyes, and experience the wonder of God’s love more than ever before. How? Because we open the doors to places that we haven’t let Him in before, and He graciously comes. If you don’t know a person who can come alongside you, ask God to show you.