To Feel So Big
Truth be told, I have been known to be an emotional person. The first movie I remember crying during was Bambi {I’m not crying…you’re crying…} When I have highs, I am really high. But when the lows hit, the valleys seem to be bottomless pits. It doesn’t matter what I’m doing, watching, listening to, participating in. I feel big feelings. I get swept up in songs enhanced by melodious tunes and intentional drumbeats and movies with underlying romantic notions.
I wish I could say this has served me well in my years, that it carried me off to big things and far adventures… that I have dreamt so big and actually touched the sky. Rather it led me down a path of depression, emptiness, and anger. These feelings often left me feeling… Depleted. Empty. Lifeless.
For many years, I suppressed these feelings. I told myself I couldn’t feel them because this wasn’t how people lived their lives. Watching gurus and professionals, some of my own supervisors and some I admired from a distance, they all seemed to have it together. And I wanted to have it all together too. So I hid. Alas, it was all too short-lived when I would have an episode that led me down a spiral of empty sadness and a constant distaste for the very life I was putting so much effort into creating.
The path of self-healing has been one of facing these emotions I have. To recognize the truth of how God has made me, dare I say… how God has gifted me. When we name the darkness we live in, we bring the darkness to light. It can no longer have power over us. I name my big emotions. I name the anxiety I have thinking over a decision I made recently. I name the overwhelming sadness I feel when I experience loss. I name the elation in my heart when it leaps for joy over the simple songs of the birds early in the mornings. I name all the emotions in between.
So, I sit in my gifting of empathy and emotion, embracing the place this has on the call upon my life. I seek how it can best be served in the body of Christ, remembering that we are just that, a body. We all have a part to play to make Christ known, and Paul reminds us that it is in our weakness that Christ is glorified. Paul wrestled with his own “thorn,” a never-ending struggle. We don’t know what the thorn is - if it was something inside of him, if it was a physical ailment, if it was a sour relationship. What we do know is through the thorn, Paul glorified Christ even more.
“Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.”
— Paul in 2 Corinthians 12:9
Do you experience big emotions too? Do you get caught up in the cycle of ups and downs?
In the lowest places, can you name the darkness, the pain, the weakness which persists?
Today, if you are struggling in the midst of pain…. emotional, relational, physical pain…. know it is safe to express your pain. Then know your pain has a place to walk with other people and to glorify Christ.
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