Guarded Heart
I first saw my father drunk when my mother wasn’t at home. At ten years old, I was the eldest of three children. My mom and sister were out shopping, and I was with my younger brother.
It was a Sunday, and I was watching a football game on TV. I wasn’t really paying attention to my dad when he came home and sat in his favorite chair beside me.
I found out later he’d been drinking with his friend Charlie.
The Packers were playing, which was Dad’s favorite team. When they scored a touchdown, I assumed he’d be happy, and I wanted to celebrate with him. I pointed out the touchdown, but to my horror, he blurted out something unintelligible.
It was the first time I’d seen anyone drunk, and I remember all the details to this day, fifty-nine years later. 😒
He made his way to the living room, and when he stooped to pet our cat he fell down. I didn’t know what to do. Eventually, he made his way to the hall and bounced between the walls to his bedroom.
There were no cell phones in those days, so I just had to wait.
After a short while, I heard laughing coming from the bedroom. Dad was tickling my little brother. He was too young to realize what was going on.
I vividly remember how relieved I was when my mother and sister came home. I yelled out, “Dad’s drunk,” but I didn’t cry. I couldn’t process the emotions. I felt numb.
A few years, later Dad’s drinking would cost him his job, his marriage, and almost his life.
All my life, I’ve struggled with hard emotions. I really don’t know what to do with them. I have a tendency to process difficulties mentally, but my heart often feels disengaged.
Since that moment so many years ago, my father, my mother, and my sister have passed away. As sad as these loses are, I’ve not been able to shed but a trickle of tears.
Just Feel it
I once told a trusted counselor that I wasn’t sure what to do with some feelings I was having concerning our estranged child.
“What do you mean you don’t know what to do with the feelings?” she asked forcefully. “You need to feel them!”
This was painfully obvious to her but I didn’t know how.
She went onto tell me that the armor which had guarded my heart as a child served me well at the time, as I navigated Dad’s drinking and my parents’ divorce, but I’d outgrown it now.
She told me I needed to learn how to explore and process my emotions. She gave me some tips on how to do this, using different crayon colors to represent feelings, and describing what I was feeling in my journal.
This helped, but I gave the process up too soon. Much work remained.
The Bible says I’m to, “Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep.” [1]
How can I weep with those who weep if I can’t weep myself?
Crying is not something you can fake. The tears well up or they don’t.
Though I’ve had plenty of opportunities to be sad, I don’t weep well.
God of all Comfort
Some key verses the Lord has been using to begin to dislodge the clogged feelings in my heart are:
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. 5 For just as the sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance, so also our comfort is abundant through Christ. (2 Corinthians 1:3-5 NASB).
I love the word translated as “comfort.” In the Greek it means to summons, to call near, to provide consolation.
As I call God near to my hidden emotions, I’m beginning to experience some softening in the crusted over parts of my heart. His Rivers of Living Water [2] are awakening the deadened sinews and allowing me to feel more alive.
I have a long way to go, but I know God’s at work.
In a recent journal entry, this is what I sense God was saying to me concerning my emotional pain:
Don’t deny the sadness and disappointments in your life. Keep bringing it all to me. The old ones, the new ones. There’s hurt, but like light and salt heal physical wounds, there’s freedom and healing when you call Me near. I’m the God of all comfort. I want to bind every crevice of your broken heart with the Joy of My presence. To the extent you allow My Oil of Gladness in to soften and soothe your pain, true compassion will grow. And as the more hidden places in your heart are brought to My Life and Light, the more you’ll experience the Joy of us being together.
Prayer
Lord, thank You for showing me how important it is to call You near in my sadness and disappointments. Thank you for showing me that denying my deep emotional pain is not what You intend. Some of these losses are extremely hard. My heart and eyes begin to sting when I embrace the magnitude of hurt and loss.
But You are my Life. These feelings are not a surprise to You, Jesus. Isaiah described You as a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. [3] You know my innermost parts. You knit me together. [4]
You love me deeply. Please keep me from ever doubting Your love for me because of circumstances I face.
I love You, Lord.
Amen.
Reflections
It’s been a while since my counselor encouraged me to work on identifying and writing about my feelings. I started off strong but didn’t persevere.
Since then, I’ve been introduced to a feeling wheel of color with different nuances of “Happy” “Surprise,” “Fear,” “Anger,” “Disgust,” and “Sad.”
This is going to replace the crayons as I pick back up on identifying and expressing my feelings.
With colored pens, representing feelings, I recently journaled the following emotions concerning a new event in a long-time sadness, which seems to only get worse:
I won’t go into the details from my journal, but the feelings wheel helped me identify that I felt: Victimized, Violated, Irritated, Provoked, Disrespected, and Shocked.
I imagine most opportunities to feel wouldn’t require so many emotions to unpack, but this was a deep, unexpected wound. The process really helped.
I expect this renewed vigor to both identify and process my feelings will continue to lead me to a deeper awareness of God’s everlasting, non-changing love for me in spite of what happens next.
I want to soak often in God’s everlasting, unchanging love for me. The Lord appeared to him long ago, saying, “I have loved you with an everlasting love; Therefore I have drawn you out with kindness (Jeremiah 31:3 NASB).
What I’ve just written is not meant to be a knock on my dad. It’s about my own battle with stuffing hard emotions and learning how to feel again.
My father came to saving faith in Jesus Christ later in life. Though he struggled with his alcoholism even after his conversion, his eventual total dependence upon the Lord with his drinking problem led to sober living the last fifteen years of his life. Dad’s story.
[1] Romans 12:15
[2] John 7:37-39
[3] Isaiah 53:3
[4] Psalm 139:13
Joy in the Journey is about the gladness of God’s nearness in the midst of life’s adventures.
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Nonfiction books by the Author:
This collection of devotionals chronicles a heartfelt journey from a life of striving and self-reliance to one of growing surrender and trust in God.
Through personal stories of family struggles, cancer, grief, and unexpected trials, the devotions show that true, unshakeable joy comes not from perfect circumstances, but from the constant, loving presence of Jesus Christ.
It’s an invitation to learn to let go of our burdens and find growing peace in God’s greater story.
Because joy is rooted in God and is eternal, it doesn’t ebb and flow with the waves of circumstances. In fact, as we grow in our understanding of joy, we can even experience it more acutely when life is hard. Why? Because God uses trials to conform us into the image of Christ. With this awareness, which gives us glimpses of God’s greater purposes, we rejoice because of His masterful work to free us from needing anything but Him.
For these reasons, and many others, joy in the Lord is commanded in scripture. It’s not just a good idea, it’s vital to our journey as human beings. Rhythms of Joy
Novels by the Author:
What happens when a professor figures out how to send messages to his younger self to try and avoid the suicide of his best friend? Did he change more than he bargained for? Beyond Time
By finding two undelivered letters in an old shack deep in the woods, Cassie and Daniel unknowingly set off a series of events which uncovers a plot to wipe out a whole family. Hope Remains
Please Check out the Cola City Podcast . Discussions that impact the vision of reaching every man, woman, and child in a city.