Those of you that always lead with your heart just gasped when you read today’s blog title. But it’s true.
I used to think that emotions were pointless.
As a girl, I’m fickle. Let’s just all go ahead and admit that, ladies. We are fickle human beings. Being fickle and knowing that my emotions could change at a moment’s notice, I decided that emotions were actually worthless. I never put stock in my emotions or the emotions of others. I felt that emotions were best ignored. How could you ever make a good decision when you let your fickle emotions have a say? After all, the Bible says, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” (Jer 17:9) So, I always operated from a completely cerebral place, only using logic and rationale when making decisions.
After doing this for some 20+ some years, it became so easy to ignore my emotions that, a lot of times, I didn’t even know what I was feeling. I actually couldn’t get my head to communicate with my heart. If I’m honest, life is pretty easy when you don’t allow yourself to feel or have emotion. You have great clarity, no problem making tough decisions, and you kind of coast through life… like a robot.
And that’s not how we were made to live, is it?
Then it dawned on me: God created emotion. I know that is a really simple truth, but it seems those are the kind I struggle to grasp the most. God made me. God made me in His image. And God made me with emotion. So to ignore my emotions, to count them as pointless, I am disregarding a God-designed aspect of who I am, and if I can venture to say… who He is. Going through life without identifying and valuing emotions, is like living half of the life God created for you to live.
Does this resonate with you? Do you dismiss emotion? Do you even allow your head and heart to communicate? If this does resonate with you, spend the week asking God to help you in this area. Next week, I’m going to dive in a bit more to emotions and the next big DUH lesson I had to learn.
