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At the same time, if I have locked away my "bad" emotions, all the rest of my emotions are locked behind the same bars to a greater or lesser degree.   I can't just decide I won't feel some emotions but will feel others.   This was the reason why I found it difficult to express my positive emotions openly.  

It took six months of grieving before God could finish the work He had started.   I had to be patient with the process.   During this time I poured out my feelings in honesty to God and trusted that at some point He would make it right.   I also gave myself a break during this time.   I backed off from almost all of my obligations.   To be honest, there were a lot of days when it seemed like the resolution would never come and I just cried out to God about that.

Then one Sunday in church a guest speaker preached a message about the cross.   Of course, I've heard about a million sermons about the cross!   It wasn't until he neared the end of his sermon that my attention was particularly struck.   His final point was that we need to leave our burdens at the cross.   What caught my attention was that I wasn't leaving my burdens at the cross.   I was taking them to the cross then picking them back up when I got up from my knees.  

At the end of his sermon, the preacher read a story written from a first person perspective of Jesus as He was being nailed to the cross.   As I listened I thought about how I would feel if it were me there looking over at my hands, knowing that in moments those spikes were going to hammered into my hands and feet -- anticipating the very real pain that was about to strike.   I was overwhelmed with the certainty that I would not have stayed there and taken on that undeserved suffering.   But Jesus stayed there.   He chose to take on that pain for me.   Not only that, but He accepted the complete abandonment of His Father when He took on Himself the equally real sin of the world.   He took on Himself my sin and He took on Himself the sin of those who hurt me.   And when He took on Himself those sins He experienced the very real emotional pain I have felt.   Every minute of my pain He knows because He experienced it too.   He didn't just experience pain like mine -- He experienced my pain.  

In that moment the understanding of just how much God loves me overwhelmed me.   And the intense pain I had been feeling for months was lifted.   The pains of the hurts of life never go away completely.   And some days the pain is once again close.   But now I truly know God as my Comforter.

There was a sideline benefit that occurred in this process too.   Many times when I talked to my accountability partners about my reluctance to allow God near the barred doors on my emotions I said that I couldn't do it.   Beginning when I was four years old, I had asthma attacks.   Many nights I was under a steam tent for hours, exhausted and hurting from the strain of trying to breathe.   My father would rub my back and tell me not to cry because it would just make the asthma worse, which was true.   However, this rigid determination not to cry became a life-long pattern.   When I did cry I would get an extremely bad headache that would make me ill and last a day or two after my tears.   When I finally told my accountability partners this, one of them told me that the headache was because of the buried hurts.   She said when I finally worked through the emotions I wouldn't get a headache any more.   I was more than a little skeptical.   But she was right!   Now when I cry I have no residual headache.

If I had never allowed God to expose my emotions, I would not have been freed to express my positive emotions, I would not know the reality of God's overwhelming and very personal love for me and I would not know God as my Comforter.   As always when God works, the fruit of the trial was worth the struggle.  

* Accountability partners as I use the term describes a mutual mentoring relationship for the specific purpose of fulfilling Heb. 3:12-13, 10:23-25.   We are friends who have banded together to seek God together weekly for his specific insight and direction in our lives and to pray with and for each other.

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