The Exhale in Emotion

Emotions are difficult. 

 Emotions are messy.  

Having emotions has gotten me reprimanded more than once.

On the other hand....

Emotions are complex.  

They are an intricate creation designed by an amazingly creative God.

Emotions are reminders.

They symbolize that we are alive, we can feel.

Emotions are connection.

They have the ability to redirect us to the loving, caring God, who holds our past and our future in his hands.

Today, I'm full of emotions.

I am so excited at the direction my tribe known as Southeast Project is headed!

I have emotions I cannot even name as I see the journey that God has lead this group of people on even before our family joined them and where we are headed with them.

I feel happiness at watching my two year old insist that she needed to go say hello to Jared, our worship pastor, before she would go to the nursery.

I felt amusement as after service she proceeded to run around the worship space calling to his fiancée, Shelby.

I feel connected as I walk through the various areas and realize I can celebrate with many other people the amazing things that are happening in their lives.

At the same time I feel sadness.

I am not really a fan of that emotion.  

I realized today that whatever myself and others that have been in my life might think; my daughters will not really know most of the people I thought they would grow up knowing two years ago.

I feel loss as I look at the people I used to know, but who no longer are a part of our life.

I feel anger at those, who are responsible for the circumstances that led to that separation.

I really don't feel comfortable with the anger.

I feel like it is an emotion I am not allowed to express.

But it doesn't exactly go away....

I feel tension as I live in the reality that I feel the happiness, the sadness, the connection, the loss, but  the anger leaves me living in the tension the most.

In the past I have always stuffed the anger pretending that I could spiritualize it and "pray" for those that have hurt me.  I think I am realizing like many things in my life, spiritualizing and "praying" really does not do much but connect me more deeply with the Pharisees.  You see, even though I am not typically quite as impulsive as Peter; I feel much more like cutting someone's ear off when I am experiencing anger.  

So the tension is there in the anger.  It often feels like every day is lived in the tension of will I blast the object of my anger?  Or will I hand it to God and say "I can't do this. Help me."  The tension remains as right now the anger has lessons it is teaching me.

Ephesians 4:26 tells us "Do not sin in your anger.  Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry,".  The part we often fail to read on to see is verse 27, "and do not give the devil a foothold."  When I focus on not letting the sun go down while I'm angry, I feel like a major failure.  I have been experiencing anger for nearly 3 years now whether I have admitted to it or not.  My husband was the one to bring my attention to the first part of the verse, "Do not sin in your anger."  When I move on to the next verse and realize that not giving the devil a foothold is part of the instruction I start to look at the whole concept to this anger thing.  

My anger is an emotion.  God created every one of my complex, messy, connected emotions.  This makes every single one of them beautiful.  

Yes, even anger....

If I let it my anger teaches me that I can try with all my might to check off the right boxes, but this emotion of anger is like corralling cats.  I do not have the ability to manage it on my own.  If I try to handle it, it is going to run all over the place!  So my anger serves as a tool that God can use to draw me closer to him.  If I am not to sin in my anger and I cannot control said anger on my own forever, then the only way to manage it is to continually bring it to him for help.  

And therein lies the exhale...

Anger does not have to be a bad thing. 

It can be a powerful tool in God's box to build relationship with me.

I can breath....

I can let go...

I can exhale...

Will I experience it tomorrow?

Maybe...

You cannot heal what you do not acknowledge,
and what you do not consciously acknowledge will remain in control of you from within,
festering and destroying you and those around you.
~Richard Rohr

Today I realized that acknowledging the emotion of anger give that opportunity to heal.  

When I name it and acknowledge it I deny it the power to fester and destroy.

Healing never happens if we ignore the very thing preventing it.

So I might experience the anger tomorrow or the next day or the next.

But owning that it exists prevents that foothold from being established and acknowledging it invites God into my story to start the healing process.