Faith isn't Emotional Denial

When we talk about walking by faith, we don't often stop to consider what we're walking past. I've recently been reflecting on the truth that the journey God has us on is not one of suppressing emotions. We get to bring it all to Him and process the negative feelings with God as well as the positive, the exciting, the joyful.

May you find space here to pause, reflect, and abide.

Vine Creative Studio holds a collection of what I like to call 'encounter tools', resources connecting hearts with Jesus. You're welcome to try one out with my free Workbook on Living as a Wholehearted Follower or Coloring page on the Fishes & Loaves Miracle.

As I'm writing this, it's been ten years since my heart first stirred for adoption. It's also just about forty days since my husband and I were technically "approved" - so now we wait for the social workers to do their thing, for the match to be made, for the phone call that will change it all.

This process is bringing up a wide array of emotions in me, many of which I'd label as "negative" or "bad". I've noticed that my instinct isn't to express these difficult emotions but to outrun them. Yet I don't think that's what faith asks of us.

If I'm walking through the Garden with Jesus, following in His footsteps, His constant call to me is 'Slow Down'. I tend to rush, as we do.

What follows the slowing down is noticing: Not only the obvious, like the big trees swaying in the wind or the loud birds chattering nearby, but also the mundane and the ordinary. Noticing the insects on plants, the weeds coming up, the new growth on some, and the change of the seasons.

Noticing seeds forming,

leaves dropping,

bare branches,

and buds indicating what is coming.

My wrestling with time, my refusal to be where my feet are - it's all just human, isn't it? I think we all cast our eyes to the horizon instead of looking down at our own toes. Last week, I used an ancient Jewish saying in something that I wrote for a client. It's from around the time when Jesus walked the Earth and it goes:

"May you be covered in the dust of your Rabbi"

(It means 'may you walk so closely behind your teacher that the dust they kick up lands on you' ...)

Now I'm connecting the dots and I'm starting to think you'll miss your Rabbi's dust unless you are looking at your feet. You have to be here. You have to be where He is.

And where is He when the days are long and the wait is getting me down?

Where is He when my tears are near and I'm quickly triggered by everything and everyone?

Where is He while my heart aches for a child that might already be born but not yet home?

I see Jesus standing outside the tomb of Lazarus and that short Bible verse of only two words: "He wept" (John 11:35). I remember how He stared out at the crowds and "had compassion on them" (Matthew 9:36).

And I know His hand is on my shoulder. He is here with me.

I'm becoming convinced that God does not ask us to deny our emotions. That's simply not the God I encounter in the Bible.

Even when our modern songs about Him focus on praise and worship alone; the Bible is full of other genres. Lament. Crying out. Asking questions.

The people whom we read about in the pages of Scripture did not hide behind a 'Christian' name tag and use it to muzzle their emotions. They felt.

Deeply.

Passionately.

Nehemiah wept before he built.

In a conversation with a friend last week, I recalled a verse that goes: "Be angry and do not sin" (Ephesians 4:26). The emotion - in this verse, the anger - is not the sin; it's what we do with it. Be angry. Feel anger. But do not let it move you into sin.

And yet, we do not allow ourselves to FEEL.

We brush it under the rug. We suppress. We hide away. We cover it up.

I heard it said on a podcast years ago that 'joy and pain have the same switch - if you switch one off, you also lose the other'. So I have to allow myself to feel what's difficult in this season - feel the waiting, impatience, worries, questions, desires, needs. Even the frustration that comes when people offer unsolicited advice, compare stories, or unknowingly project their own experiences onto mine.

Emotional denial is not the answer I seek - I need to BE here.

Yet - and this is important - the emotions are not King. He is.

My emotions do not determine my truth. He does.

The emotions come and go like waves. He remains.

And as He remains in Me, so do I remain in Him (John 15:4). I abide. I stay. I lean back. I wait.

For there is nowhere to rush just now. Nowhere else to be. Nothing else can still my heart.

I look down at my feet on the soft sand in the garden & I notice just a slight glimmer of something. I am standing on Holy ground. Like Moses, this right here is my burning bush moment. Not someplace else. Not some other day.

So I allow the feelings I'd label as "bad" to drift up to the surface. Instead of pushing them down, I let them rise up and release. I feel the emotion and I watch it - I am an observer.

The emotion is not me.

Why do we conflate our feelings with our identity? Saying, "I am sad", as if it defines all we are and all we could be at that moment...

What I am is a daughter, walking in the promises of a faithful Father. What I am is His and He is mine (Song of Solomon 2:16). So instead of clinging to that emotion, instead of holding on to feeling, I loosen my grip and I surrender.

Walking by faith through the unknown, holding on -rather- to my Rabbi's healing robe - than to the emotions that threaten to swallow me whole. I distance myself from the feeling and investigate it, like David did:

"Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why the unease within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him." - Psalm 42:5

The hope he describes as "yet I will praise" is faith. After all, "faith is the assurance of what we hope for" - but faith is also the "certainty that what we cannot (yet) see exists" (Hebrews 11:1).

I recall the many times He said "Your faith has made you well" or implied that faith precedes the miraculous crashing into the ordinary. It is the assurance of the unseen. It is holding on to Him in the waiting.

Years ago, I wrote about faith as what comes before the rain. (Linked here)

"Like a little kid pinching their nose before jumping into the ocean or a pool of water. Earth waits (for just a heartbeat) before the rain starts to fall. One drop at a time, until every open space is drenched, and as if what happened previously is washed away."

Many years after writing this, I am standing on a firm foundation of countless times when He was faithful to fulfill His promises - Surely I know this is true. I know, as yesterday's sermon at church reminded, "His ways are higher than our own" (Isaiah 55:8-9). I know He comes through every time.

I have a feeling - and this is what faith feels like to me:

I have a feeling that I will look back after this season and see how the waiting was not wasted. Even the empty spaces - all served a purpose. Even the weak moments allowed me to: slow down enough to notice where I am, notice my Rabbi's dust on this holy ground, and notice what He's done.

When I acknowledge the difficult times in the past, it fills me with faith for what He will do next. His track-record has proven true: He is way more reliable than emotions.

"He who started a good work in you will carry it on to completion" - Philippians 1:6

I'm still learning all of this myself as I'm waiting for our adoption...

You might be waiting for a diagnosis, a phone call, reconciliation with someone you love, the next job, financial provision, or simply for the fog you're walking through to lift. Our stories are different, but our invitation is the same:

Faith isn't emotional denial. It's bringing every emotion into the presence of the One who remains.

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