Sticking With A Theme

Who me? Sticking with anything...are you kidding?

Sometimes God smacks me upside the head in a playful way with themes in my life. He gives me clues and I think he starts laughing at me the way I laugh at Phil when he turns circles in the kitchen because he can't figure out what it is he should be doing.

I posted this at the Misfits Blog about Emotion in writing on Monday. Today on a new-to-me blog, I read this from Responding To Emptiness:

God is a God of truth, and acting as if our situation or emotions didn’t exist dishonors him and does violence to our own souls. God created us as emotional beings, and he is not glorified when we try to pretend away our feelings—even the ugly ones. Worse, this response robs us of the opportunity to engage with God and to hear from him in the midst of whatever we are experiencing. How can he help us work through our feelings to something holy and righteous if we won’t let him shine light into our hearts?

Acting as if our emotions don't exist dishonors God.

God is not glorified when we try to pretend away our feelings.

Wow.

That's pretty intense, don't you think? Oh how guilty am I of shoving stuff aside? I remember clearly my Uncle Ed's funeral and how I was so numb. I pretended I could handle it, and people thought I did. People kept apologizing to me saying, "I'm sorry, I know how hard you fought for him." And I kept telling myself, "I knew this was going to happen. In May of 2005 I told his hospital appointed psychiatrist that he needed to be in a facility he couldn't check himself out of. The doctor told me the only places like that were state facilities and there was a 6-8 month waiting list. I said, and I'll never forget that day, "He'll be dead in 6-8 months." The doctor looked away and said, "I know. I'm sorry there's nothing I can do."

9 months 15 days later, he killed himself. And I knew it was going to happen. There wasn't a damn thing I could do. I was plagued by depression and nightmares in the weeks following his suicide. I knew I was grieving, but I denied my emotions. Until that night I wrote a very, very hard to read piece. I sent it to a few people (you know who you are and I'll love you for two eternities for going through this with me) I know it was hard for them to read, it was harder to write. But it was the first time I was honest with myself and God. I shared it because I had to.

On the outside, I'm not a very emotional person. But inside, where people can't get to, where they can't chip away at the core of my being, I am me. A very vulnerable, emotional person. One who is trying to learn to deal with the emotions that are a natural, God-given gift.