Friend, we encourage you to read this prayer out loud.
Hey, God –
Thank you for being the God of emotions, these wild, brilliant, powerful and chatty creatures that, in Your fashioning, connect me to the world of Your creation and people and the inner world of my being.
To be honest, there are some emotions I wish I didn’t have. Some I think are too big, too scary, too overwhelming, too painful or dark. I’m scared that if I brush even my fingertips against them for a moment these emotions will open their jaws wide and swallow me whole. Maybe I’m scared they’ll swallow those around me whole, too.
But I’m grateful Your wisdom and Spirit call me to draw inward. To breathe. To dare to touch and feel and listen to these responses that the world, society, family, the Church and even myself have long neglected out of discomfort. How we’ve mistaken an emotionally sanitized life for a “holy life”.
It feels so much nicer to keep emotions packed neatly in bins of “good” and “selfish”, “helpful” and “unhelpful”, “productive” and “destructive”. But if I really believe that emotions are data, and emotions can be a way of Your Spirit speaking to mine, am I truly hearing You if I neglect slowing down, listening to this vast, varied and volatile landscape of feeling? What treasures have You hidden down beneath that I refuse to see?
Thank You that what others call dirty, shameful, sinful or inappropriate, You call valuable, authentic and full-of-potential. For better or for worse, but potential all the same. Perhaps it’s not the emotion that is honorable or dishonorable, but how I as Your child choose to treat this emotion and carry it out. Like the servants in the Parable of the Talents, do I dare bury this emotion in the earth to rot, or do I choose the hard and good work of investing in an emotionally-informed life?
And if this emotion really is an echo of my soul, this nooma-filled essence that You breathed into my very first heartbeat and cry, did You not ask me first to love myself – this part of myself – and to love others the same? Should I not love this emotion by cradling it close? To find the patience, strength, and courage to hear the unique timbre of its voice? Be it grief or joy, anguish or fear, hunger or pleasure, courage or shame.
Holy Spirit, grant me what is needed to still when this unwanted emotion arises. Help me find a safe and quiet space in You. To hold this response with the utmost tender curiosity and gentle discernment. Give me Your strength when sitting with this emotion – even when a moment is so wretchedly painful and exhausting. Through each steady step of silence, lend to me Your Word, truth and love. Let me walk with You into a deeper understanding of this intricate, unboxable soul You died upon the cross to save.
Amen.
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