To Face or Not to Face?

(By Tammy Vaughn)

I have been pondering the reasons that people choose to face their emotions or suppress their emotions.  I’ve listened to friends’ conversations and have noticed lately that many people suppress emotions and/or deny their feelings. People are generally proficient in talking about the facts of a particular situation but are not in touch with their feelings.  Instead, they choose not to delve into the emotional side of the situation.  It’s easier to talk about someone or something than take responsibility for how you feel.

Some may ask, “How do you know when a person is suppressing their feelings?”  I’ll answer the question with an example:  If someone calls an overweight individual “fat,” most likely it will cause some kind of negative reaction or feeling within the person targeted, whether that is embarrassment or hurt.  To say that it does not cause some kind of feeling is probably not likely or realistic.

There are times when a person does not realize that they are suppressing feelings.   This often happens when people do not take deep self-inventory.  They may be unwilling or unable to take the time to mine-out their deepest emotion.  Many people are fairly good at identifying happiness, sadness or anger.  However, that same group of people may not be so keen on identifying the varying intensity of their emotion.  For example, a more intense form of sadness could be depression.  A more intense form of anger is rage.  There are varying shades of basic emotions.

Some may deny that they are experiencing a particular kind of an emotion that is affecting them negatively.  This denial often happens because they feel embarrassed about the emotion.  They may feel like they are not entitled to feel the way they do.  Some people seem to be very concerned that if they give themselves permission to feel the emotion, they will not be able to actually deal with it.  According to James Gross, a scientist who studies emotions, “Suppressing emotions is hard to do and does not work.”  His studies have shown that once the emotion is triggered, it is very difficult to shut it down or ignore it. In fact, we become more tense and agitated while trying to suppress or ignore the feeling.  This shows that it is not emotionally healthy to suppress emotions.  Another negative implication of shutting off emotion is that people closest to us can tell we are suppressing our feelings; our non-verbal communication gives clues that we are hiding emotions, even when we insist on saying we’re fine.   In other words, in many cases we are not fooling anyone but ourselves.  This can actually do damage to the people we love; they end up feeling shut out because they know that we are experiencing feelings but are not willing to share them.

So, if it is not beneficial, what is the purpose of shutting down emotions?  What does a person hope to accomplish?  Often times, the person who shuts down or shuts off their emotions hopes that this action will make them appear to be strong in their vulnerable time of weakness.   This reminds me of the beautiful Bible verse that says, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:9 NIV)

Other times people hope that by suppressing their emotions they can calm themselves down or help defuse a delicate and/or explosive situation.  The person does not wish to cause waves or cause a fight.  It does not usually accomplish what they want.

Usually feelings that are stuffed down come out in ways we do not want and at times we do not want.   Often we handle stuffed feelings in ways that are not helpful to us.  Stuffed feelings can be motivators to very negative behaviors or habits like substance abuse, physical and/or verbal abuse, etc.  However, when we give voice to our emotions we actually give validation to how we are feeling.  We feel grounded and more in control.  Healthy discussions about your emotions is just that, healthy.  It actually helps to bring your feelings to the light, which makes you better able to identify and deal with the source of the emotion.  If you can recognize the emotion, you can deal with the emotion.  You can respond to the situation as opposed to just reacting like a puppet on a string or a slave to a master.  Have you ever met a person who is ruled by their emotions?  If they feel a certain way then they have to act a certain way, never realizing that they may be a slave to their “un-dealt with” emotions.  Galatians 4:6-8 says, “Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.”  So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir.  Formerly, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those who by nature are not gods.”  Our emotion, while important and valid, are NOT God.  And we should not be a slave to them.

Many things we suppress are not able to be processed by ourselves because we are stuck in our emotion.  At these times it’s advantageous to seek out professional counsel and begin to learn how to express those feelings and get them out in the open, aided by someone we trust.  Even the expression of those feelings to a close loved one is beneficial because it allows others to express care and empathy.  No one really wants to be burdened and suffer through a rough time alone.  Nor should they have to.  Open communication is one of the ways a person experiences a loving relationship.  Sharing your heart with someone you trust can greatly strengthen that relationship.  In the end, giving our loved ones a chance to show us they care and that they can be with us/there for us is actually a gift to them.

How Do I Deal With Shame From My Past?

What a great opportunity to deal with the reality of personal shame by having looked at the Cross during Easter. If your sense of shame still is lingering and it reaches back into your past, I recommend you listen to this video blog and consider the book "Shame Interrupted" by Ed Welch. Any tool that will help you understand the roots of that shame as well as how is it that Jesus addresses it in the most effective way is worth your time and resources. Here is a quote I want to put before you to "wet your appetite" for more liberating grace:

Here is the challenge. Your shame is about human relationships. What do other people think of you? Where can you fit in? Even now you could wonder, what does God have to do with this? The things God says are good, but they don't seem connected to the deeper issues. For example, if you are a public failure, it is good that parents or friends love you , but that love doesn't touch the rejection you experience. The love doesn't take away the failure. The acceptance of the King [Jesus], however, coupled with the knowledge of how to live before him, will diminish the power of shame. Other people might not yet recognize that your public failure has been replaced by kingdom humility and honor, so you still might hear a few mocking voices. But those voices can't reach as deep, and they certainly won't last. (page 148)

Click here to listen another thought the author of this book offers to us.

Did You Know About Spy Wednesday?

David Mathis, through his well-written blog at desiringgod.org will help you transport yourself to the different key events that took place leading up to Jesus' betrayal by Judas. His blog is another piece you can use to bring focus to your heart around the Cross and the Passion Jesus demonstrated in laying His life down for us. Click here to read the blog!

Failure Is (Not) An Option

It’s been a rough month.

It started with the flu. I woke up on Sunday morning one week and was a coughing, feverish, shaky mess. I decided after two days that being sick was not an option for me and dragged myself to work. It took me about ten minutes to realize that “mind over matter” wasn’t going to work. I was sick. Really sick.

Failure #1.

Yes, the flu was a failure to me. I couldn’t will it away. I was caught in its grasp until the virus ran its course. I had no control. I couldn’t work or be productive in any way. 

Upon my return to work, I realized that I was seriously behind on EVERYTHING…lessons, grades, other assorted paperwork. I sheepishly assured my bosses that I would get caught up within the week.

Failure #2.

Yes, being behind was a failure, too. I live to appear competent and in control. Now I didn’t look like either one. It felt terrible.

But I put a plan together. I would be in control once more! I plowed through my work, got things done. I had the perfect plan to be done by the deadline I gave my bosses, and it was HAPPENING. My world was in order once again.

Until I woke up that night with the unmistakable symptoms of either the world’s nastiest stomach bug or food poisoning. I’ll spare you the details, but you can imagine that the next day was not productive as far as work. 

I was still behind. Failure #3.

I eventually made my deadline by the narrowest of margins, but everything else in my life was out of order: my house, my relationships, my budget and tax filing. All had been neglected thanks to my illnesses and the zeal to get my work life together.

 I tried to get it together once again. I was filing my tax return…and reality hit. I made a mistake. A big mistake. A mistake that cost me a lot of money. I calculated, recalculated, researched. Yup. I had underestimated my taxes, and it was too late. I had to pay up with my savings. 

Failure #4. I NEVER make mistakes with taxes. Ever.

I spent a good part of that day curled up in a ball of defeat. My life had become, in my view, a disaster. Nothing was going well. Nothing. I kept asking God, What is this? A joke? A punishment? What are You doing here? I don’t get it.

And I’m still not sure I get it completely, but I’m seeing a pattern throughout all of these “failures.” Each one is based on an expectation of perfection from myself. I need to appear in control of my life at all times.  Mistakes and weaknesses are not OK.

During the current sermon series on The Everyday Gospel, we’ve learned a lot about limits and boundaries. It’s a different world entirely from the perfectionism I strive for. The idea that God deliberately sets limits on our lives is one that is far, far away from performance based Christianity. Thinking about God this way turns the events of the last month completely around.

 If I begin to think that all of these “failures” are really a part of God’s plan to shape me and limit me where I need limiting, then my attitude automatically refocuses on Him, not myself.

I’m just starting to really grasp some tough but important Truths: That life’s failures don’t define me. That circumstances beyond my control, like the flu, are not reflections of my weakness. That setbacks don’t break me. That mistakes happen and are survivable. 

And most importantly, that a gracious God is in charge of everything.

Nancy Vasquez

My Top Ten List for Thoughts on Beauty

    My daughter Ava is three years old, and she just loves to wear dresses. Everyday she asks me, “Mommy, can I wear a dress today?” And I usually let her wear one. But recently, she’s started asking me a new question each time she puts on a dress. She heads to the mirror and asks, “Mommy, don’t I look pretty now?”

    It breaks my heart to see my daughter starting to enter more fully into the lifelong relationship every woman has with beauty: a relationship both with their own beauty and with what the world says about beauty. As a mom, I so wish I could protect her. I wish I could download and program into her little mind a philosophy about her image that would spare her the hurt and struggle that women go through in this area.

I know I can’t. But IF I could, I’d use my little ‘brain programming software’ to instill these top ten convictions that I’ve come to (through a lot of suffering) into her little heart (but minus the suffering).  

Sarah’s Top Ten List 

for what I’d want engrained in my daughter’s heart about Beauty

1. We tend to think that the way beauty works is that there’s a specific list of qualifications that you have to cross off a list in order to obtain it. Either you have beauty or you don’t. In our culture, we’ve established a definition of beauty: being skinny, having a good figure, certain facial features, the niceness of our house, the trendiness of our clothes, and so on and so forth. However, I’d want my daughter to come to realize that our definition of beauty is NOT the same as God’s. God made women, (and I do mean ALL women) to be beautiful. That’s just the way we are. We possess it; beauty is in our essence. I sometimes already tell my daughter Ava, “You’re so pretty. Guess what? So is your sister Bethany. So is your Nana. So is Mommy. Your friends Myla and Bristol are pretty, too. Every girl you see around you is pretty. God just made girls to be pretty. That’s just the way they are.”
2. Why are women beautiful? Well, the reason we are beautiful is because GOD is beautiful. In the beginning, when God decided to make people, He decided to display His image in people. He made two genders to display different characteristics of Himself, and a dominant thing He designed women to display about Himself is…beauty. So, if you’re a woman, you can’t NOT be beautiful. It’s like a birthright. We’re born into it. It’s just who you are: you ARE beautiful. Because God is beautiful. 
3. I don’t need something else to make me beautiful. I am beautiful. Period. Clothes don’t make me beautiful. Being young doesn’t make me beautiful. Makeup doesn’t make me beautiful. Being ten pounds skinnier doesn’t make me beautiful. There’s not an equation that says ‘Me + <insert something else, such as a bigger chest, or makeup, or the cutest clothes> = beautiful.’ No! If there’s any equation, it goes ‘Me + NOTHING = beautiful.’ And, again, it’s because of God, The Beautiful One, making women to display His image, that we’re beautiful.
4. Also. My beauty can never be defined in comparison to someone else. The beauty that’s on MY life is personal, particular, and unique. It’s not an ideal cultural list of criteria. It’s a gift from God. For example, has this ever happened to you: you feel good about your outfit until you reach the party that you’re going to, and all of the sudden, you hate what you’re wearing? It’s happened to me too many times. Or recently, I’ve been working on exercising daily and I feel good about my body getting more in shape. But I can feel like a fat, ugly blob when I see someone who is skinnier than I am. Or have you ever tuned in to notice the images everywhere in our world that are screaming at us what it means to be beautiful and what standards we have to achieve? But my beauty can never be defined in comparison to someone else. It can’t be measured by our culture’s definitions. My beauty can only be defined in relationship to God. 
5. The Beautiful God has specific reasons for making beautiful women. He has purposes for our beauty! He wants our beauty point people to Himself. My beauty is not a chance to prove to everyone that I’m the best. But we’re like little wildflowers who might make someone think of the Creator. Our beauty is to point back to Him. That’s kind of theoretical. But here’s a purpose that’s pretty tangible: our beauty is supposed to create a safe place for other people. Our tendency is to use our own beauty to make ourselves feel safe. But God gave it to us to make others safe. 
6. How do we use our beauty to make ourselves feel safe?? It can look so many ways. It’s a pretty sneaky temptation, in my opinion. For example, I’ve struggled so often with having the wrong motives for making my house cute and well decorated. A good word for what it feels like deep inside is striving. And I do that striving to prove to myself that I’m feminine enough, a good enough woman. And I’ve wanted friends to think the same. I used the gifts of my personal taste (which IS beautiful) to find a sense of security in my identity. Or I’ve certainly picked out clothes to make myself feel safe. I’ve thought if I’m trendy enough, I’ll be wanted as a friend. Or I won’t be rejected. And I’ve been afraid that I’m ugly and I’ve worn makeup to cover up my face to give myself a sense of security. I’ve striven to be skinny thinking that if I weigh more than I’d like to, I’m scary place where I might lose something valuable…my security. It’s like I’m trying to save myself from the scary place of being unwanted or unloved by being beautiful enough, both in what I look like and in who I am. 
7. What will it feel like for other people when I follow the temptation to use beauty for my own safety? Well, it will hurt them. I’m actually going against the design that God has for my life. I’m actually creating more unsafe places and feelings for others. When we strive after the ideals of needing to be skinny, having a perfect house, never aging, and so on, we’re perpetuating the lie that beauty is a list of criteria. We’re just one more voice saying that you can’t rest in who God made you to be. You have to change the way you are and strive, strive, strive, to try to grasp an illusive security that will never actually feel safe. The Biblical term would be that we’re encouraging others to chase after ‘false gods.’ I can think of an extreme example of this: think of an actress who is playing a role in a movie that includes nudity. If you’re watching a movie with a sexual scene in it, and you’re next to your husband, do you feel safe? Nope. You feel very unsafe…and compelled to strive harder so that you can be safe in an unsafe world. The actress is using her beauty in a way that’s attempting to secure some kind of safety for herself (fame, the label of ‘sexy,’ etc) and it creates an unsafe environment for the rest of us. It’s going against the design for a woman of creating safety.
8. So now that I know that I’ll be tempted to use my beauty to secure safety for myself…but that God’s design is for me to make others feel safe…how can I do that? What does it look like? Well, one thought I have is that it looks like putting limits on myself in the area of beauty. We’ve heard some sermons about this idea of limits on Sunday mornings at LFA, and I think it’s very applicable to beauty! For example, we learned 3 ways we can know we need to impose a limit on ourselves. The first was if I’m trying to be more than human. That’s certainly applicable to beauty. We have the pressure to try to: live up to a supermodel standard of appearance, lose ‘baby weight’ at a super-human speed, keep an immaculate house, stay looking as young as I did when I was 21, keep the same body that I had pre-babies, always look perfectly put-together, and on and on and on. Or the two other ways we can know we need a limit were if we’re trying to live someone else’s life (do you have an ‘arch-nemesis’ that you’re always trying to live up to?), or when we just want something too much (being skinny? a bigger house? pottery barn furniture? perfect family pictures? no wrinkles? a six-pack by summer?). When we find tendencies such as these in ourselves, it’s a GREAT time to impose a limit on ourselves.
9. And what might a limit on myself look like? It might look like coming to terms with my post-babies body and being kinder to myself in my movement towards health instead of striving so hard to be as skinny as possible. It might look like a more balanced, calm approach to my diet. It might look like changing my focus from a perfect house (that I’m trying to get to prove my identity), to creating a house that will feel safe and welcoming to people who enter it. In fact, getting that welcoming and safe feel might have more to do with me working on myself and who I am on the inside and how much I’ve listened to the Hoy Spirit’s desires for this person than with my actual house. It might even look like using my energy to get people into my house, aka using my energy to look for who I can love and get to know. A limit could look like choosing not to wear something immodest that looks great on me. It could look like not dressing as trendy as I possibly can and being more normal. A limit can look so many ways, but it will create a safe place for other people, a refusing-to-strive-place. 
10. One other way of using beauty to make others feel safe is kind of the opposite of imposing a limit. It’s intentionally offering who I am. When I hide and try to change who I am, it’s yet again trying to manipulate safety for myself. But a woman who trusts that God has made her beautiful, both inside and out, and that who she is will be a gift to those who get to know her because God made her and God lives inside of her, will be a gift of safety to people. She’ll be emanating rest. There will be a lack of striving. She’ll be a safe place that points others back to God. When she is restful in the way God made her, believing that she is innately and uniquely beautiful, she can proactively use her beauty to minister to a hurting and confused world. She has nothing to prove. 

So there you have it. My top ten list for thoughts on beauty. Unfortunately, I don’t have a secret brain programming software. But even so, I do pray that God would give my daughter Ava, me, and also you, grace to walk in His design for beauty. 

Sarah Howard

Big Question! Where does it say Jesus Hopped??

(By Lois Robinson)

Growing up, Easter was always a big deal in my house. I would look forward to getting my new fancy Easter outfit, which included a little white hat, purse and little black patten leather shoes. The night before Easter, I would dream about what would be in my Easter Basket , how big it would be and what kinds of candy it would be stocked with. I always wanted the biggest chocolate bunny!! The song was always a favorite as well....

“Here comes peter cottontail, hopping down the bunny trail, hippity hoppin’, Easter’s on its way....”  Easter day would come, we would dress in our fancy Easter clothes, sit in “our” seat in church, sing the standard “easter” songs, hear the same ole message about this guy Jesus died on the cross and came back to life in 3 days and so on and so on. All we looked forward to was getting out of there, eating candy, the big Easter dinner that only came once a year and the Easter Egg Hunt that would follow. Yay, let the party begin. The Jesus thing was a formality that had to be acknowledged but the Easter bunny, Easter dinner and the Easter Egg Hunt was what it was all about for me. That is what I was taught. I even remember that the church Easter program had the Easter bunny hop right up the center isle of the church as everyone sang the hippity hoppin' song.

Let me not fail to mention, I was raised in a “Christian” home. 

          As I am writing this blog, very real emotions rise up inside of me of anger, sadness, confusion. Two of the most significant events in history , one being the birth of Christ and the other being the work He did on the Cross and His Resurrection......diluted down to a party involving food, an imaginary figure and a gift. Oh God, please forgive us.

Another set of emotions I am experiencing are humbleness, thankfulness and comfort. You may be asking how can I feel such contradicting emotions at once. It is very possible.....as you look below the surface you will find out:)

I am so thankful that as I have gotten older, failed a lot more and learned from those things, Jesus has shown me deeper truths about the Cross and His resurrection. I used to think it was a one time thing when I got saved but it is an everyday thing. Everyday I am a sinner, but everyday I must remember that my status changed on that Cross because of Jesus. Not because of WHO I am or WHAT I’ve done . It’s all because of WHO JESUS IS AND WHAT JESUS DID AND WHAT HE IS CURRENTLY DOING AND WHERE I FIT IN HIS STORY!

The more I get nearer to Him and He gets nearer to me, I am reminded of how ugly my sin was and is. When that reality really sets in, the Cross of Christ and His Resurrection evokes deep emotion in me. When I literally allow my defenses to drop, get quiet before Him, think of the UGLY things I have done and been apart of by choice.... and some not by choice.....and to know He literally died for all of that willingly without me even asking Him to do that for me......and then on top of that......GOT BACK UP IN 3 DAYS in order to give me the victory everyday over all those ugly things that held me down.....WOW!!!!!!! How can that not give you chills!!!

So, I am not presenting a challenge this time. I am giving a directive this time. Please do not make Easter all about the stuff I mentioned in the beginning of this blog. None of it served to bring me life, forgiveness or freedom. I am not anti- food, anti -eggs, anti- rabbits, anti- candy or anti -gifts. But I am anti-idolatry. Whenever we make anything or anybody bigger than the One who is to be Celebrated...........it leads to bondage. How you may ask:) Using my own experience from the beginning of this writing, since the primary emphasis in my family was on the party, the food, the basket and the egg hunt, the “life or emotional high”  I experienced from the celebration was over by the next day. It was a form of entertainment without substance or truth. So when I encountered hard times later in life, I had virtually no understanding of why Jesus really had to die, what significance that had on my sin/circumstances and how His resurrection impacted my ability to break out of patterns of daily brokenness and sin. That is a HUGE reality I never learned as a child because “Easter” was  about everything else but Jesus and the work He did for me and everyone else on the Cross. Consequently then, I walked around in bondage for a long time without knowing the true reality of Easter and its implications for my life. The Freedom that was waiting for me based on the Reality of the Cross. I tried many many things to experience freedom and none worked for longer than a day...if that. But, when I got serious about Looking below the surface ..........I began to learn what the Significant event of Easter was and IS all about. Amen

Know what you are celebrating and why you are celebrating it!

How To Cope With Suffering?

(By Diego Cuartas)

Suffering is such a part of our human existence and though this is the case the presence and experience of it still affects us and shapes us in ways beyond our calculations.  Suffering remains a purposeful reality within God's plans for our lives. Therefore, it is important that we lean on a godly framework to face it and walk through it. Today, I want to share a good resource produced by Ed Welch, from CCEF, on this topic. May God use it to encourage you and bless you in the difficult places of your life.

Click here to read this article on "Ten Things to Do During Suffering".

The Freedom of Limits

This past Sunday was an exciting day for me because my brother and sister in law dedicated their baby daughter in the second service. Ara Faith is pretty much everyone’s favorite person right now and it was incredibly special to stand up there with Dan and Holly as they declared that Ara belongs to God. 

I thought that was that, but after the service I started connecting the dots between Ara’s dedication and Nate’s sermon about knowing our limits and how God wants the gospel to shape our limits. 

It’s so easy to take what God calls our limits and call them something else instead- like failure or incompetence or not trying hard enough. We’re a culture of go-getters and nothing is supposed to be able to stand in our way. Of course, that isn’t how it really works and we end up discouraged and frustrated, always a few steps away from the life we think we’re supposed to have or the person we think we’re supposed to be. 

Despite that reality, finding freedom in my limits still seems like a ridiculous contradiction. I think it’s because I usually associate freedom with independence, and independence means I control everything and never have to give up. (I’m pretty sure that kind of thinking reveals that being American shapes my theology more than the Bible does, but that’s a WHOLE OTHER STORY.)

Okay, back on track- finding freedom in our limits. I can’t think of a better practical example of the joy and blessing that comes from knowing your limits than what I saw in Ara’s dedication. I loved seeing the tangible action that Dan and Holly took because they know they cannot give Ara everything she needs. They cannot completely protect her; they cannot shape or control her or her life to make it perfect or happy. They acknowledged that reality and gave her back to God and in doing so they experience the freedom of not having to perfectly accomplish those things alone. 

I’m not a parent but I do know that nothing is ever that easy and simple. But I think maybe that’s the beauty of knowing your limits. Limits don’t mean the end of everything, they’re just the end of our capabilities and the place God can step in and do something more. 

I’m excited to begin this process of embracing my limits – not as failures – but as opportunities to step out in faith and know that God will meet me there. 

Jessica Noblett