Those were the words my squad leader, Renee, said to me on a rock in Swaziland. She asked me to pray about what letting my emotions flow freely would look like. I did, and 2 days later I had a full blown case of strep throat with a migraine. During my days in bed I got angry. If this was part of learning to let my emotions flow freely, I’d rather just stick with keeping them on lockdown.
Post-recovery, I realized that I was still angry. I felt like I could snap over the simplest things. Anger is an easy emotion for me to feel and express. I didn’t want to take this out on the people around me. After admitting I was angry to my team leader, Emily, at lunch it was further dragged out of me at team time… which just made me angrier. I couldn’t shake it. The following day as I lay with my headphones in to drown out my thoughts, “Jesus Christ” by Brand New came on shuffle:
That one line sent tears streaming down my face. In all of the years I’ve dealt with anger and rage, I’ve felt like my dark side would eclipse the bright. It was too much. I wasn’t ready to face the deeper truth.
2 mornings later the Lord woke me up:
I went to the kitchen to tell Emily the words I had woken up to and that I would need the morning to face God, I lost it. She had also woken up to the Lord saying that I needed to wake up and talk to Him. After a few minutes of counsel outside, she told me she felt like I should read Matthew 6, and she left me to process.
“The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great the darkness!”
-Matthew 6:22-23
Subtle hint, eh?
That verse was already highlighted in bright yellow. As I sat on the big rock in Swaziland, with “Jesus Christ” on repeat, the following spilled out into my journal:
This song has been really hitting my buttons. The line of “my bright is too slight to hold back all my dark,” feels like the only true way to express what I’m feeling. It’s so hard to let my emotions flow freely when something as vulgar and ugly as anger flows first. It’s the puss of a wounded heart that ever healed properly. It’s an infection that eats away under the surface. Outward appearances are deceiving… it’s a crack in the foundation threatening to bring down the whole structure.
It’s not going away on its own. I’ve tried to patch the crack but it’s destroying me. It’s a staph infection to the heart that’s ruining me from the inside out. It’s cancer in my bones that leaves me weak and brittle. I can’t contain it anymore.
There’s so much more that can flow out of me. I was meant to have authority over my emotions, not to hide from them, turn off the valves and walk away. When the valves are shut off, the supply can’t flow. When it finally finds the cracks and explodes forth in a torrent, it’s not beautiful anymore. Each emotion that had been held captive has become the opposite of what it was meant to be. They weren’t meant to stay in captivity. Prison changes the nature of the thing that was placed inside.
Now that my anger has come to the surface and diffused it’s disfigured and diseased blood in my heart, pain has been crying out while it gushes out of the cracks like a geyser. Repressed pain is finally being allowed to cry out. That’s where the anger is morphing from. It’s from the pain and anguish that were never meant to be trapped behind the stoney walls of my heart.
I allowed my heart to harden.I lied to myself all of this time saying that it was beating when, really, I was just trying to maintain the cracks when it tried to break free.
I am damaged, and I’ve mostly done it to myself. I can’t do it anymore. I can’t be this shell of a person anymore. I have to feel in order to identify the lies. I have to let my emotions flow so they won’t eat away the essential supports to my heart structure.
My heart has become unstable. Isn’t that what I’ve always tried to protect it from? Instability? It looks, smells and feels different from the instability that I’ve always feared, but it’s crumbling nonetheless. THere should be a sign around me screaming “CONDEMNED! STRUCTURE NOT SUITABLE FOR HABITATION!”
I need to be new. Rennovations only last for a short time before the cracked foundation and black mold eat away at the freshly painted walls. Why have I waited so long for a new heart?
Lord, I need a new heart. I feel something beating wildly within me. Is it freedom? Am I free? Can I feel now? Can I express? Take away my stone exterior away! Let me be new, but let me be strong. I don’t want mold, puss or cancer to riddle this new heart with holes.
I feel like my heart is beating freely for the first time. Breathing has been so hard. The burdens that I’ve carried have never been my own. It’s all been too heavy. I AM NOT ATLAS.
I’ve been trudging around like a pack mule instead of sharing the yoke. I’ve tried to take it all rather than letting the Master unload my shoulders. I am not Samson.
Be free.
The load is gone;
The temple is new,
Rest.
He will move you at the right time.
The stress of carrying the load has been killing you.
It’s taken major reconstructive surgery to make you whole again.
This is the time for healing.
It’s not just rehab, it’s complete newness.
Breathe.
Breathe.
Breathe.
Let your heart run wild.
You haven’t been alright for a long time.
You’ve tried to hide the damage with posters and new paint.
You are free. The replacement is done and it’s better than before.
Absorb love.
That is your medicine.”
Well, if you’ve read all of this, I hope that the Lord has spoken to your heart as He’s spoken to mine. My heart went from being a run down mausoleum to a Roman bath… Instead of cracks and decay, it has high pillars. It’s open to the wind. Fountains can flow out and it’s a place where I can go find rest and share my feelings with the Lord.
“And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.”
Ezekiel 36:26
