I have come to believe that our emotions are one of the ways that God has fearfully and wonderfully made us. Therefore, learning how to feel what we feel is another access point to God’s wisdom that dwells within us. I am discovering that when my body is well, my spirit is too.
This has come as a surprise to me. The faith I was raised in, while Christian, was very dualistic, pitting the flesh and the spirit against each other. I learned early and often that if my body was sending impulses I didn’t like or understand, they were meant to be overcome by the will of the spirit.
When we take the risk to lean into our emotions and tend to the physical sensations they create, we also lean into the goodness of how God made us. In our big and small feelings, we are reminded that God feels these things, too, because we are made in God’s image. May that reminder give you the courage to pay attention to what you feel physically and emotionally, viewing it as another opportunity to draw closer to your God.
This message is excerpted from “Feeling our feelings as spiritual practice” by Collette Broady Grund in the March 2023 Café online magazine. Today we commemorate Jonathan Edwards, teacher, missionary to American Indians, 1758.
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