Emotions. Feelings. Love. Anger. Jealousy. Do those words make anyone feel uncomfortable? Good, it's not just me.

Sometimes we simply do not grasp the concept of emotions and why we have them. But the truth is that God created emotions. We feel the way we feel for a reason. It is important to listen to ourselves and work things out--in a healthy way of course. Sometimes instead of feeling what we are supposed to feel, we beg God to take them away or hate ourselves for it. We may just shove them down and ignore them. In circumstances like these, praying, or talking about it can be so massively difficult or even hurtful. I believe the reason for this could be that we know what we want. Or, we do not know what we want and we cannot figure out what we are supposed to do in our lives. The problem is that we do not have the same vision as God. We cannot see every second of humanity, past, present, and future, all at the same time. We cannot know the end of any story that has not played out yet, much less our own. As a result, we do not actually know what is best for us in the end. Not the way He does. So, sometimes He does not relieve feelings/emotions for you. Sometimes there is no way around it.

I feel like He lets us work things out ourselves for a reason. We learn so much through these experiences. We learn how to pick ourselves up and lift our eyes--everyday. Even if things are not perfect and even if we are in pain, we push through; we do not have a choice. We could be learning patience, selflessness, maturity, responsibility, love, or whatever it is that we need to learn to succeed in life. One of the most important things we learn is how to be honest with ourselves and how to be human. We discover how to recognize what is happening mentally and emotionally. Although this may seem easy, not many people acquire this talent. By the way, I do consider it a talent. To know exactly what you are feeling and why is a difficult thing to do. We understand how to be human through emotions. We have feelings, thoughts, all of it. We are complex creatures, not simply driven by instinct. We need emotions to survive.

Instead of begging God to fix our situations, maybe we should just talk to Him about it. Perhaps it would be healthier to ask Him to help us work things out; to process and overcome each issue. It would be an act of self-love to tell Him what is happening in our hearts and listen to Him for guidance. The reason for that is, as previously stated, God has created and knows everything. But what does that have to do with us? Well, He loves us more than we could ever understand. His sovereignty is good news to us: it means He has the power to take care of us. God has our best interests at heart.

In our lives, throughout the craziness, we must learn to put our trust in God. It does us no good to worry--we cannot do anything about it. It is a good thing to trust in God! Sometimes He uses hard things to drive us to our knees and lie in His embrace. That is all we really need. How refreshing to our souls would that be?

Please, take a deep breath. Remember how much God loves us. He will not let anything harm us. Yes, we may have troubles and hurts for a beautiful outcome, but He will never harm us. He knows that without pressure, there are no diamonds. And if we know pressure, then we will know diamonds.

Philippians 4:6-7 (NLT), "Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus."