Your emotions are real—but they are not the whole.

“I’m going to be honest—I don’t think I’ll get past this one. It just hurt too bad.”
“I don’t think I’ll ever be able to have a relationship with them again.”
“Life has just been one thing after another. What’s next?”
“I mean I could pray I guess but why when nothing seems to be going my way?”
We have all heard these statements expressed in one way or another—either by our own lips or through those around us.
It’s the power of the present emotion—and the danger of it.
Like a thick mud that sets your feet and your focus in one direction, removing the ability to have much peripheral vision or awareness of place in space—and the emotion and the circumstance triggering it plays like a movie reel over and over and over again.

Even the most emotionally mature, agile, and wise people must take a step back, assess, and ask the Holy Spirit, “What aligns with truth here?” Heightened emotions give reckless permission slips.
It doesn’t mean the pain isn’t real or the wreckage didn’t happen or the boundary line needs to be what it once was; however, whether it’s how you’re viewing your life in this season, how you’re handling a relational issue, how you’re summarizing your experience, or how you’re reacting to everyday circumstances, remember to zoom out.

A holistic perspective considers how far you’ve come and the faithfulness it required, which offers deep courage + tenacity for the present.
A holistic perspective is aware that mistakes will happen but they don’t have to generalize the person, place, or experience as a whole.
A holistic perspective zooms out as far as it possibly can to consider eternity—will it matter there? What will you do with the pain is Heaven is more valuable to you than earth? How will you steward the unanswered prayers if you fear God more than you seek to understand Him?

Wherever you are—take heart.
Your emotions are real—tired, angry, sad, wounded, confused, hardened, bitter, etc.—but they are not the whole.
Healing is the process of recalibrating the weight on Heaven’s scale. Never ignoring the site of the pain or disruption but letting it be a reminder that God is always reviving + restoring what we can’t see.