Dear friends. I have just read several Facebook posts where someone is going through terrible things because of what a loved one did. Seemingly everything is crashing down around them and it is hard to even take the next breath. Believe me, if you have lived very long, you have experienced it.
How do you get through it without letting it destroy you, even for a little while? Let your logic take over. When your emotions are wounded so bad you feel you cannot face your tragedy another minute, let your logic take over.
Instead of thinking about how this other person is dragging you into something terrible and being angry at them for what they are doing to you, develop “righteous indignation.” Instead of thinking, “s/he did me wrong,” think, “what s/he is doing is against the laws of God.” The first is your emotions doing the thinking, the second is your logic doing the thinking. Your logic doesn’t have feelings that can be hurt.
David went through this in Psalm 42, the one that says, “My God, why have you forsaken me?”. In this psalm, his heart (logic) is having a talk with his soul (emotions). Let’s listen in:
DAVID’S EMOTIONS: As the deer pants for the water brooks, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? My tears have been my food day and night while they say to me all day long, “Where is your God?”….
DAVID’S LOGIC: Why are you in despair, O my soul? And why have you become disturbed within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise him….
DAVID’S EMOTIONS: O my God, my soul is in despair within me….
DAVID’S LOGIC: Therefore, I remember you from the land….
DAVID’S EMOTIONS: Deep calls to deep at the sound of your waterfalls; all your breakers and your waves have rolled over me.
DAVID’S LOGIC: The Lord will command his lovingkindness in the daytime, and his song will be with me in the night, a prayer to the God of my life.
DAVID’S EMOTIONS: I will say to God my rock, “Why have you forsaken me? Why do I go mourning?”
DAVID’S LOGIC: Why are you in despair, O my soul? And why have you become disturbed within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise him.
Thank you for this powerful message, sister!
I think we pretend too much with each other we never have tragedies. I hope this helps a few people.
I agree, it’s often said that to be sorrowful is to lack faith. But Christ Himself wept when He saw Mary, Martha, and the Jews morning over Lazarus.
Lack of faith? Even God is sorrowful at times. We, his children, make him so.