Emotions vs Reality

When I was a child my mother often told me "you wear your heart on your sleeve!"  Quite frankly, I didn't understand what she meant until I matured a bit.  Mom was the stoic German who learned to show her feelings as she aged.

When I married Smitty he soon discovered what Mom meant and began saying, "Has the sun come up yet?" indicating that I was in tears.  Whether happy or sad, angry or full of joy, I have lived by my emotions all of my life.  And now I'm learning to separate the feelings from reality.

This morning's devotional (Jesus Calling by Sarah Young) shared that God is with us as believers even when we don't feel His presence.  I need to learn that while emotions liberally season my life, very often the reality is that God is only a whisper away.  He cares immeasurably more deeply than I.  But He allows me to go through a range of emotion each day to help me experience His provision and presence more completely.

The best example of what I am learning is "back to school".   Last week was "Super Week" for my old school district.  Teachers headed off to trainings and their classroom set-ups.  I struggled Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.  I longed for the renewal of friendships, the joys of arranging the classroom, the fun of creating lesson plans for a new group of students.  Then on Tuesday and Wednesday this week I knew that each and every teacher was meeting with staff,  finishing classrooms, sharing stories of summer joys.  I fought depression for two days.  Yesterday, the first day back for the students, I played  at a spa with several friends.  We lounged, talked, and ate our way through the day.  My mind hardly ever considered the students and teachers in their classrooms.

My feelings of the previous days had hindered me in some ways, but they had  also brought back lots of warm and joyful memories from years past.  And God reminded me over and over that we move on to new challenges which will also be filled with joys and sorrows.

 Feelings and emotions seem to guide me, sometimes being valid measures for what I experience.  Often times they crowd out the truth that God's presence is constantly with me and His Spirit awaits my call for His guidance.  The richness of life rests in the truth of Immanuel, God with us and in the truth that He never leaves us or forsakes us.  My Heavenly Father blesses me with feelings; then He teaches me to trust in Him, not them.