Over the years I’ve had to deal with some difficult emotions at times I had absolutely no control over them. Crying at a drop of a hat, screaming in anger at the top of my lungs. Just to try and release the flood of emotions that would build up in me.
It wasn’t until I began doing volunteer work that I understood that every one I met had problems dealing with their emotions. When I began facilitating a mental health support group one of my first goals was to help others and myself how to not let our emotions run away from us.
We can easily let our emotions dictate our choices instead of us dictating our emotions. The only reason letting our emotions rule are bad ones.
My day would usually go like this, something good would happen I would be happy, something bothered me, I would be frustrated, something bad happened I would be angry. I allowed every situation to dictate my day.
Joyce Meyers says “You can be pitiful or you can be powerful, but you can’t be both.” Without finding a way to stabilize our emotions we can find ourselves living one big pity party everyday.
In the support group I ended each group with something they could work on until the next time to improve their lives. I asked everyone to be mindful of how many pity parties they were having and to write down how many times if they needed to.
Because the group I facilitated was a state run organization, I was unable to speak to anyone about God during the hours the support group ran.
So, I took it one step further and began taking my self-pity and horrible attitude to God every night and let Him fix me up. I would go to bed happy, but wake-up sad because I knew I would let every emotion make choices for me.
After working with the support group and my prayers to God, I began to be a happier person. It’s called “the joy of the Lord.” I started trusting that if God could fix me and my emotions up every night, then why couldn’t He do it during the day time also. It’s kinda silly notion that didn’t dawn on me that it was obvious.
I began going with the support group for coffee, and having little parties at different time of the week, so that I could tell people about the Lord, but to my surprise quite a few of the people who came to the weekly support group also went to a church.
I volunteered doing that for about 2 years and then moved on to work at a addict recovery center which was faith-based. Emotions are a big part of our lives no matter what situations we find ourselves in.
But, there is not a single bit of emotional upset or instability that we have to put up with.
That means:
- It doesn’t matter how to you got hurt
- It doesn’t matter if someone placed a medical label on your emotions or not
- It doesn’t matter how long you’ve felt like this
- It doesn’t matter how easy it is to get back into a unstable thought pattern
The simple fact is that Jesus has paid for you to be free from everything that brings you pain, and He will completely stabilize your emotions if you ask Him to do so.
There are a lot of options that can help to become more in control of your emotions. It’s just that none of them were and are as effective as prayer for me.
I tried self-help stuff, I tried and tried to fix myself by reading every positive thinking book I laid my eyes on. I tried the success principles that my therapist told me about. But no amount of success principles or self help book helped me.
So, when I became desperate enough, I asked Abba – The Father. It was then and only then that things began to change for me. God answered my prayers and stabilized my emotions.
From Pity to Praise 