“If you don’t feel, you can’t hurt”

I’m almost 100% sure that we can all agree the last 6 months of 2020 have felt like a perpetual tidal wave. We are continually bombarded with all of the realities of darkness, sin, heartache, injustice, and incomprehensible actions of our fallen world. As a mother, I felt like the last month took every ounce of surplus I had within in completely out. I found myself so overwhelmed that it became paralyzing. I couldn’t think without anxious thoughts leading me down various rabbit trails. I found myself carrying the weight of so many unnecessary feelings that my body began to physically ache. Where do we even begin with the clean up of the worlds chaotic mess?

We begin with sitting at the feet of Jesus, always.

We begin by silencing the noise of pain & reach for the peace of Jesus.

We unplug from “feeling” to falling before Jesus, again and again.

I’ve always had this fear of feeling too much. Most women are told that they are “too” sensitive and their feelings are not valid. Because if we can’t feel, then we can’t hurt, right? Wrong. The more we sit in the deceiving concept that having it all together is where it’s at, you about to be at the wrong place a the wrong time, ALL THE TIME! Feeling isn’t always properly portioned , poised and positioned in the way we’d like. We hide behind countless filters and pretty words. To feel, really feel, and take it in for what it is takes the fall of our pride. This photo of me is definitely not the most glamorous, it is however, one of the most meaningful to me because it portrays what we really was. I was overcome with emotion in the midst of attempting to understand just what in the heck was happening all around. Many know that Giann had a pretty severe MS relapse about a month ago and it was one more thing to consume another part of my emotional stability. WIfe, Mom, Mentor, Friend, Leader & all the other twenty -thousand hats that we wear finally coming to a halt.

Where was my grace? It was waiting for me but I was too consumed with coming up with a life altering way to save everyone in the world.

Where was my peace? It was steady in the hands of Jesus but I was too caught up in how to hold my IG feed together so nobody knew I was crying myself to sleep.

Where was my confidence? It was delicately kept in the promises of his word but it made more sense for me to attempt to hide my feelings till they disappeared.

You need to feel.

You need to hurt.

You need to mourn.

You need to bury.

You need to fight.

You need to choose to be refined in the pain, not just known by it.

Wholeness is chosen and recited day after day, in the mundane and in the glorious. When we neglect to acknowledge what we feel, we are choosing to deny that there is anything wrong in the first place. Healing takes courage as a choice no matter the circumstance.

May the earnest prayers of your heart not be disguised by the necessity to clean up before you confess. There is no “secret” within the sacred moments before God. The mess we’ve created, the mess we live in, the mess we fall into countless time is the same mess where God’s love reigns supreme. He sees the rage, the foul talk, the unforgiveness, the offense, the cycle of sin and He does not look away in shame & disgust. He does not clothe us in the perpetual cycles of our past & the residue of who we were is not a scent he is familiar with.

New again. and again and again. As if it were our first time being crafted by the hands of his righteousness.