A few nights ago, one of my best friends, Emily, and I were at dinner. She sat down and, without any small talk, launched right in. “I’m afraid I am depressed.” Emily is in a lot of counseling right now, working through decades of hard circumstances and pain. She said, “It feels like everything is getting worse, not better— yet.”
Yet. She still had hope it would turn. It was a tiny sliver, but today, even as I write these words, she is at her counselor’s office for her next session because, as hopeless as some circumstances feel, she chooses to hope enough to show up and give God room to work.
Resilience and perseverance require hope. We would all stay in our beds permanently if it weren’t for hope. Even if it’s just a small sliver, we believe things could be better than they are.
The Enemy’s goal for you is hopelessness.
To quit hoping that your marriage will ever get easier.
To quit hoping that your depression or anxiety will ever get better.
To quit hoping in the people around you to be safe places, so you never share.
To quit hoping that healing is possible.
This is his great scheme and plan, and he’ll use any tactic to take hope from you.
You know what makes me so sad? You might feel helpless. Hopeless. Yet if you know Jesus, you are filled with the Holy Spirit, the greatest supernatural helper of all time. Better than any superhero ever. He contains all knowledge and power. He is yours in Christ Jesus. You are never helpless.
The moment we learn how to feel our feelings and not run from them or judge them, we free up all that energy we were pouring into not feeling them all those years. We can then live life as it was meant to be, complete with highs and lows and joy, grief and mourning, dancing and love, and sometimes loss.
As I invite you to feel your feelings, remember that they don’t have authority over you; rather, you have authority over them because of Christ Jesus. Feeling our emotions can lead us to our greatest hope, for that future day when every tear will be dried and every wrong will be made right. Every pain will be healed for eternity because our ultimate connection will be fulfilled with God and with each other if we know Him.
“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” John 16:33 NIV
Jennie Allen joins Randy and Tammy this Thursday on LIFE TODAY. Adapted from Untangle Your Emotions by Jennie Allen. Copyright ©2024 by Jennie Allen. Published by WaterBrook, an imprint of Random House. Used by Permission.
