Emotions are powerful. In the moment in which I am accosted by powerful feelings, sometimes the last thing I can fathom is to “Be still and know” that He is God.
But this choice in the moment is the hub around which my healing turns.
I can do anything with an act of my will–so can you!
With an act of my will, I can be polite to someone who I am not very pleased with–like the clerk in the check-out line. In fact, I can choose to cheer a smile right on to her face!
With an act of my will, I can move over into the “slow” lane and let the nasty man who is riding my bumper through the canyon have his way, even though I would rather slow down and pump my brakes. 🙂
With an act of my will, I can hug my family member who has allowed his emotions to get the better of him and embrace him in his craziness, resulting in a defusing of a potentially explosive situation–as well as some cherished “cuddle time.”
There are so many things I can do with an act of my will. By the power of God’s Spirit in me, I can choose in this moment what I will do, think, and say. With these choices, often come new feelings.
When my emotions rage, I can choose, with an act of my will NOT to go into the kitchen, but, instead to sit in a special place designated as my “time out” chair, or draw a bath…and I can, instead of allowing my emotions to send me flying into the arms and deception of food eaten when I am not physically hungry, to prayerfully evaluate “What is really going on here?”
I have come to a place of seeing that God calls me to sit in the feeling, in fact. To actually look straight at it and to…well…this may sound bizarre…welcome it. You see, I have a history of decades of running from my emotions, of not bringing them to the Lord, of short-circuiting his intentions in allowing situations in which I will be emotionally needy. Now, I see that he wants me to experience his sufficiency in all these kinds of situations. He is the Holy Way Maker, but in order to know what he desires for me to know by allowing experiences that strap me emotionally, I have to be willing to feel what I feel and wait for him. He will come.
He has torn us to pieces
but he will heal us;
he has injured us
but he will bind up our wounds.
on the third day he will restore us,
that we may live in his presence.
let us press on to acknowledge him.
As surely as the sun rises,
he will appear;
he will come to us like the winter rains,
like the spring rains that water the earth.”
