Emotional Baggage

I meant to write this blog last week…then I tried to write it yesterday so I could say that I actually got a blog out in under two weeks. Looks like two weeks is the best I can do! I don’t know how you bloggers write every other day and even daily?! I am impressed. Of course, no one would want to read my meager words that much, so maybe it’s for the best!!!

Two weeks ago I was feeling hurt and angry. Try as I might I couldn’t let things rest. I was allowing things to fester. That’s NEVER a good idea. Then these words by Elisabeth Elliot pierced my heart:

“I am thanking God that unto us a Child was born. I am thanking Him also that there was a pure-hearted woman prepared to receive that Child with all that motherhood would mean of daily trust, daily dependence, daily obedience. I thank Him for her silence. That spirit is not in me at all, not naturally. I want to learn what she had learned so early: the deep guarding in her heart of each event, mulling over its meaning from God, waiting in silence for His word to her.

I want to learn, too, that it is not an extraordinary spirituality that makes one refuse to do ordinary works, but a wish to prove that one is not ordinary- which is a dead giveaway of spiritual conceit. I want to respond in unhesitating obedience as she did: anything You say, Lord” (Keeping a Quiet Heart, Elliot).

I cried as I read about Mary’s obedience and her silence before the Lord. I wondered when the last time I had been silent before the Lord was. How often I come to Him with lists of requests or begging Him to take me on a different path. Many times I plead with Him for my desires and asked Him to change the actions of those around me. But here was a woman who didn’t fight or plead. She said YES and silently obeyed the Lord.

My father often reminded me in high school that I was choosing to be upset, and I could choose a different path. Mary chose quiet obedience. I had been choosing to be hurt; to continue on in anger and self pity. I would say that as women, we are often led by our emotions, thinking they are the controlling factor. We think because people are hurtful and trials are frightening we must succumb to our feelings. We cry and tell the world how hard it is. We swing from emotional highs and lows at the drop of a hat and blame all of it on our circumstances. We proclaim that it is better to lay it all out on the table no matter what destruction we might cause. I have often left my husband hurt and bewildered by my emotional purging. I want to learn the beauty of silence before God.

I am not saying that circumstances aren’t hard, and I think that fellowship and confiding in Godly friends are blessings in the life of a Christian. Yet I feel that we use those terms to cover up what we truly are doing, gossiping or asking for self pity. I also believe that crying is important at times. Trust me; I have done my fair share of it! Yet we deny the importance of self control. We claim our emotions are a separate entity and follow wherever they may lead. But aren’t all things, even my emotional reactions to how others treat me, under the Lordship of Christ? If all that I am belongs to Christ, and if I allow Him to rule my life, shouldn’t He rule my emotions as well??

I had been hurt by the words and actions of others, but I had to painfully come to the realization that my continually choosing to be upset was sin, plain and simple. Christ didn’t cry “you are mean to me” or “that’s not fair” as people mocked and abused Him. He forgave again and again. And He was content at all times in His earthy role. He loved perfectly and continuously. That is His calling for my life as well. I am to glorify Him and bless others. That means learning how to forgive, how to hold my tongue, how to let go, how to be at peace in any and all circumstances and how to love.

I truly want Christ to be Lord of my life. I do not want to be a slave to my emotions or my circumstances. It seems every trial and hardship leads me back to the same place; deny thy self. It is a hard thing to learn, the hardest of things; yet I know it is the most important.

"This love of which I speak is slow to lose patience - it looks for a way of being constructive.
Love is not possessive.
Love is not anxious to impress nor does it cherish inflated ideas of its own ideas.
Love has good manners and does not pursue selfish advantage.
Love is not touchy.
Love does not keep account of evil or gloat over the wickedness of other people. On the contrary, it is glad with all good men when truth prevails.
Love knows no limits to its endurance, no end to its trust, no fading of its hope; it can outlast anything. It is, in fact, the one thing that stands when all else has fallen” ( Elisabeth Elliot).