"Real" Emotions

So, I'm sitting with a friend on Sunday night, and he's praying for me, listening to God, and praying about the stuff we'd been talking about. I'm half-way paying attention, half-way distracted by everything going on around us, and all of a sudden he says, "God, give Lisa real emotions." Then, he turns to me, grins, and goes, "P.S. I don't know what that means." His way of saying it was a God prayer, and not a him prayer.

I'd already started laughing. I had a pretty good idea what it meant. It was something I'd been thinking about recently. What has been at least two and a half years of depression has done a number on my emotional health. I have mostly been deadened, bombarded by so much pain, and depression that my emotions began to shut down. They stopped allowing me to experience things as deeply. I would put on a emotion in the same way I put on clothes. It's time to be happy now, sad etc. I would especially do it in church services - okay, the worship needs me to be excited, longing, happy, etc. Not a problem, because the emotions were never deep - they were there to mask whatever was really going on. It was a coping mechanism that has allowed me to survive the last couple years.

Recently, I'd become very aware of my limited emotional span. I can't cry - that was the biggest indicator, because I've always been a person who cries easily. And so, my friend prayed that I would feel "real emotion."

I wish he hadn't.

Let me rephrase. I don't wish he hadn't, but, when I started getting hit with emotion tonight at house church. There was no putting on the "right" emotion for worship. All I could do was sink into the couch, close my eyes and let the music and singing flow around me. I was/am exhausted, and I would guess that it showed. I don't know if some of the other emotions were playing across my face - the sudden sadness, the confusion over this place in my life, the insecurity, the sense of isolation while being surrounded by people. Wow. It was tough. All I could think was "I want to get out of here, but I can't leave because I drove 5 other girls, and it would disturb everyone, not to mention make them angry if I needed to leave in the middle of the study."

I think I may have taken some of the emotion out on others, and for that I'm truly sorry. I was VERY cranky. The combination of the last couple weeks, the emotions of tonight, hormones, frustration, lack of sleep, major school stress this week, and "real" emotion was more than I could cope with gracefully. I was feeling bitter and angry at what I was experiencing, believing God was in it, but not wanting this - not knowing what to do with it, and mostly just wanting to go home and crawl into bed and bawl my eyes out with the tears and release that never comes.

So, if you're thinking about me in the next couple days, pray that I survive. I have a couple of very intense days at school, followed by work, and a couple more intense school days. Pray that I will find release, that my mind will remain functional and clear even in the midst of emotional turmoil, and that God will continue to release things in my life - because that is my greatest desire at the moment - to be released from the things that hold my life so tightly in the grip of fear and depression - to be free.