Sometimes I don’t want to feel my feelings.

Whether it’s because the feelings are too deep, the place is not right, the time is not now, or the person is not safe, there are times when it is safer for me to keep feelings buried rather than allow them full expression.

Sometimes I just don’t want to go there.

But there are wounds that come. Wounds that strike us deep, that take us by surprise. Words are said that strike harder than sticks or stones.

There was a wound. Something was said that hurt and hurt deeply. And it was so so hard.

It was hard because of the injustice. And because I’m still surprised that as humans we can choose to say things to and about each other that hurt so deeply.

And in the midst of all the pent up emotions I was powerless to address the issue. It wasn’t mine to address. I couldn’t rail and storm at the perpetrator but the storm was whirling within me.

There were too many feelings and not enough outlets.

And the kicker in the situation was that I knew, knew by my own heart and through the Spirit that I was called to forgive.

So I sat at my desk, willing myself to release forgiveness. But it would not come. It would not come because I needed to unclench my spiritual hands before I could receive the balm of releasing forgiveness.

Have you ever been there? Where you know you need to forgive, in light of God’s commands and his desire that we not be imprisoned by our unforgiveness and bitterness. But forgiveness just will.not.come.

Forgiveness through clenched teeth is my most surface level forgiveness, an act of the will but not of the heart.

I’m offering lip service but not heart release to what God has asked me to do. Forgiveness needs to be wrestled from me rather than something I freely give.

Is that forgiveness or is it spiritualizing my situation and shutting the door to what God really wants from me?

Spiritualizing is “giving the experience to God’ before one has fully felt the emotional impact of the event.

Patricia Galli

Sometimes I wish people couldn’t see into my head and heart so well.

Because, yes, sometimes I don’t want to feel the feelings and I just want to be done with it. But I’m not finished if I don’t acknowledge what is going on in my own head and heart. If I don’t acknowledge before God that yes, my forgiveness is reluctant and recalcitrant.

But you know what? There is space for the reluctant and recalcitrant me in God’s presence.

One of the things I love most about God is his resilience. How Naomi, David, and so many before me have come to God and laid out the truth of their hurting experience before Him. Their anger, their wishes for the other’s enlightenment (sometimes violently as in the case of David), the hope that God will FIX IT!

I sat before God. I laid out before him my hurt, all of it. My anger, all of it. My tears, all of them.

I told him what I wanted to change. I told him, through pointed prayer, how I wanted him to intercede with the one who wounded and how they needed to change.

Unfettered and unabashed, I told God all of it.

And in that space, I began to unlock spiritually. I began to hear his voice speak truth about how another’s words don’t have power over me. How his love covers all sins, theirs and mine.

And healing began for me. I began to see the other person with less anger and more grace. I began to pray differently, with a more open heart and less rigid emotional core. I could laugh again at the joy and wonder of a God who can whether my emotional storm with patience and healing and love.

The fullness of emotional expression is available to us in the presence of God. And when it is there, when I sit before him, rail before him, cry before him, complain and curse before him, he is the conduit for healing and the ability to forgive.

Placing what I have experienced, in its fullness, into his hands is the greatest healing and mercy. There is no judgement, only guidance, no platitudes, only truth. There is acceptance, correction, redirection, and the power of the Spirit to do what I feel too angry and frail to do.

There is truth that we rush too quickly to a tidy end by ignoring so many steps along the way.

We are called to forgive, but sometimes that requires a different honesty and courage in God’s presence. Sometimes we need to go there with him before we can go forward.

Though I may be reluctant to take the time to feel the feelings with God, I never regret it. I always come out changed, aware again of how much he loves me, delights in me no matter my emotional state.

If forgiveness is hard, don’t be afraid to feel the feelings. Trust God, come before him, sit in his presence. Sit with a trusted friend who prays you through as you lay it all before him.

There is healing, forgiveness, and a way forward when we offer him who we are. Forgiveness can come, by his power and through his love.

Don’t be afraid. He is good. Feel the feelings, he can handle it. And we all are better for it.