Tag: feelings

He Restores My Soul

Our family just got back from four days at the beach. We went to Hunting Island State Park in South Carolina and got a primitive tent site. When I was making reservations I just took the only site available for four days. And then took another site that was available for two days, since our family is too big to be in one site. Well, it turned out that site 25 and site 11 are right next to each other, so our family wasn’t spread out all over the campground. Also both sites were right next to the bathhouse and right next to the very short path that led to the beach. 

I loved being in the ocean. I grew up in Haiti and the sounds and smells of the beach feel like all the good things about childhood. The water was very warm, it wasn’t crowded, there were waves for the kids to play in, but it  stayed calm enough that they could swim safely. There was a brisk wind that blew all day. And our tent and the bathhouse were literally a sixty second walk away, so it was easy to go back to our site for lunch and snacks and bathroom breaks. 

The beach was awesome. 

Tent camping was not that great. 

The beach had wind, but there was a big sand dune separating the campground from the beach and it blocked all the breeze. Early in the morning and in the evening there were swarms of no-see-ums and mosquitoes. Our site had very little shade and our canopy with mosquito netting  was just tall enough that all the sun came in on the sides and we were constantly having to move our chairs to stay in the shade. At night there was no breeze and the temperature never went lower than the 80s. And the kids and I were not able to take the time to get the sand off our feet when we went into the tent because we were hurling ourselves through the barely unzipped opening to try and escape the swarms of bugs chasing us. Which meant that by the second night, my air mattress was covered in a fine silty layer of sand that, with the help of sweat, stuck to our whole bodies. 

Fortunately, we have friends who live in the area that we were also visiting and the second night my oldest child abandoned camp and went and slept at their house, then the third night the next four oldest joined them, and the last night, we said, forget this, and we all went and slept at their house. 😀 Hurray for friends. 

I loved being on the water, but on our last day, I was able to say confidently that I did not want to live near the beach. It was great for a visit, but it was really nice to get back to the mountains of East Tennessee. 

A verse has been going through my head the last week or so from Psalm 23. “He restores my soul.” I approached this vacation feeling like this trip was going to be part of the process of God restoring my soul. 

What I expected was paradise. 

As I lay in my bed the first night, so hot I couldn’t sleep. I thought about other people having beach vacations, staying in nice air conditioned hotels. And I thought, YES! But are they building character on their vacation??? We are building character by gum! And that really was what a lot of the trip was about. Being hot and tired and irritated and having to stop being snippy and be patient instead. Trying to keep a sense of humor. Not letting things slide into a complain-fest. It was a weird mix of unbridled joy as we frolicked on the sand and then everyone tired and grumpy as we tried to feed people and clean up for bed. I failed often, but I kept trying. 

Sitting back at home now, I do feel restored. More energetic, more purposeful. I think my path to restoration was getting unplugged (no phone service at camp!) and being immersed in all the senses and all the emotions. Feeling things strongly. Good things and bad things. Getting back into my body and mind instead of staying in a constant distracted or zoned out state. 

It was good. I’m thankful. 

The Lord is my Shepherd. He knows what I need. 

Emotions Lie

This post is probably a bit off color. Taboo. Things we don’t talk about in mixed company. Sorry. Since this blog is about my life, I get to pick what I write about. 

What has been on my mind this week is how difficult it is to be a woman who is having monthly cycles. For me, once a month, I have an entire week where suddenly my emotions and feelings lie to me. They tell me that I am angry, depressed. There is no hope. Everything is bad. I am a screw up, a failure. I feel tired and run down. Life feels very bleak. And without fail, it usually takes me at least three days before I make the connection…Oh, right. I’m not REALLY depressed and angry. It’s just that time of the month. But the domino effect has already begun. I try to make myself feel better by eating something sweet or some other special treat. I have no energy so maybe I miss a day of exercise. And then I feel worse. I’m so undisciplined. Why can’t I stick to my diet? I’m so lazy. I couldn’t even get out for a walk. 

And then I figure out what’s going on. And it takes me several days to unravel the mess and get myself back on firm ground. And then I move on with life, forget what happened, only to be hit again a month later. 

And reading this, I think, well, duh why haven’t you been more proactive to chart these things and just plan ahead for them? All I can say is, I’m not the most organized person, and life is really busy. I chronically don’t pay attention and then get hit every month. 

And sometimes, the “everything should be fair and equal” part of me rears up a bit in anger. Why is it just women who have to deal with this? And why were we made this way? It seems to be a rather broken system. 

I think this is one of those topics in which I’m going to have to wait till I get to heaven to get the answers.

In the meantime, all I can do is dwell on what I have learned from this aspect of womanhood. 

Here is what I have learned. Emotions and feelings are not reliable, trustworthy or honest indicators of how my life is going. And I constantly have to remind myself of this. One of the things I say to my kids, A LOT, is “Let’s speak some truth over this.” When they tell me about a nightmare that has scared them. A fear that is crippling them. They give me a list of everything that is wrong with life…Ok. Let’s speak some truth over this. Let’s sort out reality from fiction. Let’s count our blessings so we can see that we are actually living in a place of blessing, not curses. Let’s dwell on what God says about us, not what the world says about us. Let’s attack these bad feelings with truth. 

Something we hear a lot in our culture is “Just Follow Your Heart!” And by heart we generally mean what you are feeling. Which seems really weird when feelings are so random and unstable. They are connected to what time of the month it is. Whether we had a lot of inconveniences thrown our way. Whether someone else decided to behave badly toward us. Feelings and emotions are great tools, but only if you don’t take them too seriously. Yeah, I’m feeling really yucky. But that doesn’t mean life is really yucky. It could mean I’m fighting off a cold, my hormones are shifting, my lunch didn’t agree with me. We just have to keep in mind that every surge of emotion needs to be paired up with some truth speaking. 

We All Need Some Grace

This evening I feel very mixed up. On one hand we have a very stressful situation we are working through that always seems to be hovering in the background. Then I have a spot of pure joy bursting through me as my oldest child chose to get baptized yesterday. Then I have issues with my health I’m low-grade worrying about. My children cause a big mixture of love, amusement, annoyance, humour, anger, and really, any other emotion you can think of, sometimes all at the same time. I am feeling very thankful for the good things I have, and then I start complaining cause some things aren’t the way I like them. At a drop of the hat I could get angry about social issues. And at the same moment I could start crying because I just heard a story about someone being amazingly kind. It’s no wonder that when people say, “How are you?”, you just automatically say, “I’m fine thank you!” What else can you say? It gets a bit complicated if you say, “I am currently feeling every emotion on the spectrum.” 

 

Being human is so complicated. I imagine a big churning pot of stew with a million ingredients and as you stir a big spoon in it, different ingredients float to the surface. How are you doing? Well, right now I’ve got some happiness, joy, and enthusiasm going on. But if you stir things up a bit, I’m sure that annoyance, anger and selfishness can make an appearance.

 

Usually, when I’m writing, I have one set of emotions that is taking preference. They stir up thoughts and memories and I end up having a cohesive idea to talk about. Then there are days like today were my thoughts are going in a million directions, my emotions are having a wrestling match, trying their hardest to be the one on top that gets noticed. My memories are popping up from all kinds of directions, and I just kind of feel like banging my head against a wall to make it all go away. 

 

I’ve been reading a book about God’s grace. I guess that my current mental state is a good indicator of how much grace I need. I’m a mess. And I’m pretty sure I am not alone in the need for grace. I can go on all day about how amazing God’s grace for me and you is. As Christians we spend a lot of time focusing on how God extends grace to us. And that is a very good thing to spend time on. I think though,  I don’t spend as much time thinking about how to extend grace to others. 

 

I am very good at thinking about how downtrodden I am, how deserving of favor I am, how in need of a break I am. I don’t think I spend as much time thinking those things about others. But, when I do, life is so much better. When my husband comes in at night, and I think, I have been here all day with the kids! It’s time for him to step up and help me! I find that this attitude does not make for a nice evening with my husband. But, if I step back and think, hmm.. My husband has been working all day in the hot sun. He must be really tired. I’m tired too, but maybe if I give him a chance to take a shower and eat and give him a big cold drink, he’ll be in a better mood for our evening of parenting we have ahead of us. 

 

I find that this is the same with people who get on my nerves. If I put my entire focus on how they irritate me, kind of keeping a score card of all the things they do wrong, then, yep, I’m going to stay in a constant state of irritation towards this person. But, if I make the effort to walk in their shoes, see what struggles they are facing, try to get some insight into why they act the way they do…It’s a lot easier to extend grace towards them.

 

It’s interesting that the more we get to know someone, the easier it is to extend grace towards them. It’s like knowledge and insight naturally produce love and grace. Maybe that’s why God can love us completely and extend such amazing grace to us, because he knows us completely. 

 

In the end, we are all complex creatures who only show the world a tiny fraction of what we are thinking and feeling. May I remember daily to practice extending grace to those around me.