The past three weeks brought me more emotions than I anticipated the month of February would deliver. But often, that’s exactly what life is – Unexpected. Unrelenting. Upsetting. Unsure. But it’s also other things too – Good. Healing. Surprising. Sweet.
I found myself over the last 21 days walking with the Lord through some intensely deep and at times heartbreaking moments involving someone who once was a part of my life. What has comforted me most is knowing God saw those 21 days before I even entered them. He saw them. He saw me. He knows me and He knows how I would walk into this experience, first as the incredibly deep thinker I am and then as the uniquely connected feeler I am.
Both parts are special gifts He’s intentionally placed inside me. During the last three weeks though, sometimes I was like “God, being made like this, to be such a deep thinker and deep feeler is making this experience so incredibly hard to walk through. This would hurt less if I wasn’t wired like this.”
Photo by Nick Owuor (astro.nic.visuals) on Unsplash.
Eh, perspective.
I could imagine from God’s view those very gifts of being uniquely wired as a strategic thinker and highly emotionally intelligent very well helped me navigate the unexpected emotions and realities I had to face in this experience in a healthier way. I took an emotional intelligence test recently and it revealed out of a high-end score of 130 on the EQi scale, I scored a 124. Mercy. I’ve been made to acutely sense, understand, and communicate my emotions and the emotions of others very well, which shapes the way I move in the world. God made me a highly emotionally intelligent being. On purpose.
If I wasn’t wired in these unique ways as a thinker and a feeler, my experience of everything the last three weeks would have been, could have been so much more difficult. But as I reflect on how I navigated through the pain and the surprise, I realize I gave myself what I needed to work through the experience.
I prayed. A LOT. I talked to God about everything. And He listened to my hurt, my anger, my pain, my loss, and my recognition and acceptance that a move toward a finality I had never thought about or wanted would be necessary for me to move forward.
Photo by Mohau Mannathoko on Unsplash.
I walked and I listened to myself move my feelings out of my body as my steps pushed movement into my feet. Movement sometimes helps me connect even deeper to what I’m feeling and I meet a lot of truth after some miles have been made.
I journaled and connected my feelings to my thoughts…which yielded 22 pages of reflection, emotion, and truth that helped me to let go and invited peace into my heart.
I processed with my inner circle and they prayed, listened, and comforted me with the kind of love and steadiness that only comes through authentic relationships.
I cried and I let myself feel what those tears had to say. Some of the saying was hurt. Some was disappointment. And some was the sweet release that’s given when forgiveness is offered in the midst of brokenness.
I rested in the strong foundation of wellness that I’ve built with intention into my life over the last year and three months. A foundation that poured into my health, gave me focus for what I hold high with value, and the purposeful actions that allowed me to love myself so well with self-care. That foundation was readily available for me to lie back on when my thoughts and my feelings were too much for me.
I realize that the gift of love gives us so much. It gives us beauty and unspeakable joy. But it also gives us the risk of being hurt. Because where our love goes also goes our hearts and our feelings and our emotions. Those beautifully invisible things wrapped in all three that are full of incredibly vivid color when we are so happy it feels like our hearts are gonna explode. Happiness emerges that etches itself in the sky blue backdrops of the best days ever, days that you want to last forever that feel like sunshine and embraces and good things you only dreamed about that finally happened and you want that feeling to just last forever because it was just that good.
Those moments are SO GOOD.
But the days that unexpectedly come that are their foils feel so terrible, just as the good felt so wonderful. Sometimes love also means experiencing deep hurt. Opening yourself up to the happy and the joy may include more than just those things.
What I’m finding true for me is that I’m willing to risk for good love. I want to risk well. With wisdom, discernment, hope, and courage.
I consider this truth as I risk: “When has loving anyone ever exempted us from pain and challenges?” I’m learning that love doesn’t bring that hurt and pain. But caring for someone, opening yourself up to vulnerability, being willing to connect relationally to someone beyond yourself – that is where the chance to breathe in heartbreak can come.
And the caring is because we feel and we feel because we’re human. I’m learning to continue to live and lean more strongly into the sweetness of my humanity. For in it I’m seeing so much of who I really am. And I’m deeply loving who I’m discovering, tears, happy, beauty, and so much more.
Featured photo by Eye for Ebony on Unsplash.
As I reflect on Cru and how this ministry continues to grow as a community passionate about connecting people to Jesus Christ, I see the power of intention at work in several places. One specific one is through The Lenses Institute.
She encouraged me with her heart for God’s kingdom and to see oneness truly happen in the Body of Christ so that the love we have could touch those beyond church walls. She is a woman who leaves an incredibly deep legacy of love, intentional living, and fruit that has borne witness to the power of the gospel of Jesus and God’s indescribable love for people.
