No, you are not.  You are not too much. You are human. You were designed this way.  Intentionally.  Made in the image of God, by God. There is purpose for everything, including your emotions.    

If you are anything like me, you’ve felt it.  Waves of feelings that come crashing down on you…sometimes slowly and other times with no warning at all.  And within seconds, you are trying to make a game-time decision on whether to float in those feelings or swim away from them as fast as you can in fear of being swept away with them!  

When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled.  And he said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.”  Jesus wept.

John 11: 33-35

Somewhere, from someone, many of us have received the message that we shouldn’t feel so hard.  I’ve asked myself many times over the years why I am such a feeler….as though it is a bad quality.  When, in fact, it’s not.  Yet I’ve had years of being trained in that mindset. I have found it is most commonly rooted in rejection and/or guilt in having those emotions. Here’s what I mean….. 

REJECTION. You stop sharing your emotions for fear of it becoming dangerous to the relationship. After allowing yourself to be vulnerable with someone by allowing them in to that place of raw emotion, they suddenly slip away to avoid dealing with it. This is very common in families and friendships and can feel like such a betrayal. You share your heart and then distance is created by people that we depended on and loved. You are left feeling ashamed and lonely.

GUILT: And then there is guilt. “I shouldn’t feel this way. Overall, my life is good, so what is wrong with me?” I’ve played this record in my head MANY times, especially as a Christian. There is a real guilt associated with negative feelings like sadness or anger because it feels like a shortage of faith. We should feel the joy of the Lord at all times right?  

Jennie Allen so eloquently writes that “Denying your emotions is denying ourselves the truth of our humanity as beings created in the image of God – the God who feels all these feelings and created us to feel them as well.”

Emotions are not the problem.  Emotions are gifts from God, helping us to better connect and relate to the world around us.  We were made to be emotional beings….it is healthy. God built us with emotions giving us the capacity to relate to Him and others. Emotions connect us! Whether it’s the joy found in watching your child succeed, the sadness of a major disappointment, or the elation felt from a great night with friends. 

Even Jesus himself felt. Luke 22 tells us that under the the duress of His impending crucifixion, Jesus “withdrew from them about a stone’s throw, and he knelt down and prayed.” He was clearly overcome with emotions. “And being in agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground” (Luke 22:44).  Jesus experienced anxiety to the point of sweating great droplets. Can you imagine what He must have been feeling? As perfect as He was, He still was overcome with emotion.

What is far more important than what we feel is what we do with what we feel.  In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus brought feelings of intense anxiety to our Heavenly Father. He didn’t freak out, He didn’t spout off at the mouth to the disciples, He didn’t deny what he was feeling, and He didn’t run away or try and control the situation. Instead, He simply brought it to God in prayer. 

Emotions, if left unchecked and not under the authority of our faith, like anything else, can run us sideways.  I’ve been there.  And oh let me tell you it can be so very tempting….and satisfying if I might add!  Emotions can lead us to momentarily react in the flesh because it temporarily feels good. Healthy for us in the long term though? Nope. 

My husband and I have personally had a stretch of hard lately.  We’ve been in a place that we don’t necessarily want to be day-to-day.  It’s safe to say that we’ve covered the gammet of emotions over the situation that we have found ourselves in over the last few months.  Anger, frustration, sadness – you name it and we’ve probably felt it. And, although it might seem tempting to conceal or control what we have been feeling, what I know to be true is that emotional health cannot exist without emotional truth. To live in the fullness of life that God has to offer us, we must walk through these things and feel them with emotional transparency, bringing them to God, each other, and a few trusted friends.

In my journey of learning to embrace my emotions, one place in the Bible that I have found myself gravitating toward is the Psalms of David.  David’s Psalms demonstrate the vast array of feelings that just one person can experience. I am not alone! Whew! The Psalms have granted me permission to be honest with God and others. 

Many of you, like me, need to hear this loud and clear.  

Feeling difficult feelings is NOT a lack of faith. 

In fact, it demonstrates quite the opposite – that you are human! Freedom is found in knowing you can voice your feelings to God and He isn’t going anywhere! If you are lucky enough to have also found that one trusted spouse or a few trusted friends to also confide in, then you are blessed!

I want to encourage you to view your emotions with a new perspective. They are meant to guide, instruct and connect us. Having emotions does not make you too much for God. Start by entrusting them to Him.