Foster’s Faith-filled Fridays!

Welcome to Coffee Hour @ Chicklit Power and Trench Classes United and welcome to our first Foster’s Faith-filled Friday! You are going to love this girl’s transparency!

Emotions are good! It's okay to feel. 

If you're like me, you have a hard time allowing yourself to feel emotions. For me, I used to suppress my emotions -- angry, sad, upset -- and then try to drink them away; the result, I usually ended up exploding!

I'm learning that it is good to allow yourself to feel every emotion you are experiencing. Emotions trigger our will; they get us moving in a certain direction, and in that aspect, our feelings can be good or bad since they are essentially leading us toward the Lord or away from him.

It's essential to be aware of our feelings even if they are moving us in a sinful direction. Not to repress them or deny them, but admitting and confessing them. Our feelings can be healthy or unhealthy but they are not sinful in and of themselves unless we allow them to control us and thereafter indulge in them. Like holding onto grudges or acting out when angry.

Once we are aware of our feelings we are able to start developing self control. 

It’s best to understand feelings as coming from our mind.  A good rule of life is to always think and feel (back and forth and prayerfully) before you decide to say or do anything of significance. 

One of the hardest things to experience is the way people will invalidate others by telling them how they should feel about something or that there is something wrong with them if they are having the feelings they are having. Don't allow someone to do that to you.  I see now that the times in which I have struggled most have been when I felt something that someone told me I couldn’t. Someone deemed that thing unworthy of feeling bad for and inadvertently (or not) made me feel as though I was unworthy for feeling it.

You know what happens when you let people do that to you? You don’t work through your experiences, let alone your feelings. You let them stay with you. You throw them on top of the already heaping pile of a storm life has you perched on; you sculpt it into another pillar and forget about it. It’s only after enough are built that you realize you’re trapped.

Remember having emotions are good; allow yourself to feel. And remember that your emotions are gauges not guides. Let them tell you where the attack is being made so you can fight it with the right promises. And go to a trusted friend for prayer, perspective, and counsel if you need to.

Mind: “A cheerful mind works healing” (Proverbs 17:22, AMP).

Heart: “Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart” (Psalm 37:4).

Body: “Your sensual desires… are ever warring in your bodily members?” (James 4:1, AMP).

Social: “You’re… showing such strong concern for me… You came alongside me in my troubles” (Philippians 4:10, MSG).

Soul: “My soul faints with longing for your salvation” (Psalm 119:81).