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Today I spent time with my nieces, ages 3 and 1.  What pure joy!  As I was reflecting, knowing I would be writing this, I saw that they are uncensored in their emotions and have no hesitation to feel exactly what they feel…to the fullest and very loudly!

I was reminded of Jesus words in the gospel of Luke, “Let the children come to me. Don’t stop them! For the Kingdom of God belongs to those who are like these children.” (Luke 18:16)   As you sit and watch children you stop and wonder what it is that He was referring to?  Their pure devotion, their undiluted passion, their unbridled and often reckless abandon to their feelings and emotions?

It brought me a bit full circle to some of what I touched on last month.  I think that we as adults get so stuck because we have such judgments and conditions to our emotions; which ones are appropriate, acceptable, and good.

So often we are taught that there are “weak” emotions.  Even some are taught that all emotion is “bad”.  I truly believe that to be fully alive, to be fully human and embrace all of who we were designed to be we must embrace all emotion not as good or bad, but as reality.  We are humans created to feel deeply.  To shut any part of those down is to shut down a part of our person, a part of our humanity, and to not live fully.

I see that purely as I watch these children in their play.  In a matter of an evening there was deep joy and laughter, and then I got to see anger in its delightful fullness as well!  I see that clearly we cannot behave in that manner and throw ourselves on the ground when we do not get our way…though I think if I am honest there are times I wish I still could!

So, where am I heading with these thoughts?  I find myself going back to the “both/and”.  We are invited into the journey of sitting with the tension of the dichotomy of conflicting emotions.  And in that place there is something profound to be felt.  In that place we often encounter Jesus.

Let me share a vivid example:  A friend of mine found out she was pregnant.  A month before she gave birth, her grandmother, whom she dearly loved, died from a stroke.   When she gave birth to her beautiful baby girl I remember talking to her.  She was struck by the intensity of the joy she felt and yet in the midst of that she also felt a deep sadness that her grandma wasn’t there and will never hold her baby.

A daily example:  A person wakes up battling intense feelings of shame and sadness.  They would rather not get out of bed.  The message they hear in their head is, “buck up”  “pull yourself up by your own bootstraps and get on with the day”  “shake it off”  “As a Christian I shouldn’t feel this way, I should have joy and peace” “stop your pity party” etc.  The feelings are not embraced at all; in fact they are shamed in the process of attempting to rid themselves of such “negative and bad” emotions.

I need to end, yet am just beginning!  J  So today, I am feeling like there is a big connection between the Scripture in Luke and our adult fight against embracing all of our feelings.   I like the picture of Jesus tenderly looking at the child in all of us and beckoning us to be kind and compassionate to that part.  Can we learn to recognize and embrace the fullness…the both/and.