Today I felt helpless. Not in a weird way where I need any encouragement, so no need to message me on Facebook, but helpless enough to shake me a bit and cause me to have serious feels. But, instead of embracing the usual DMV wait time that helplessness brings, I instead walked directly into service and threw my hands up to worship God in the wait. I worshiped God despite the moment and problem and despite my feelings. I worshiped God because He is still God and He wasn’t moved from His throne. So, if loneliness taught me HE is ALWAYS with me, then helpless reminded me that HE is ALWAYS for me. Regardless of what I could or couldn’t do the truth is always that He is working on my behalf. The crazy and bizarre thing about God is that He allows trials to unearth things within us. He allows heartbreak at times to realign our loves and He allows circumstances to show us His faithfulness. I don’t understand it, and this week I definitely didn’t understand the things that were thrown in my direction. But, I do know He is with me. I do know that He is for me and at the end of all of it He is God and He will be glorified through it all. Look, I’m not a professional at navigating this I just frequent this journey more than I’d like to admit and I thought perhaps sharing what I’ve learned could perhaps help you venture these roads. Don’t let your feelings not teach you something. Trust your feelings, God gave them to you to help you decipher what He’s unearthing within you. // Loneliness unearths your lack of dependence on God. As a person who has struggled deeply with depression I’ll just say this. Happiness is not a feeling, it’s a result of spending time with Jesus, so if your lonely or depressed spend more time with Jesus. The loneliness will dissipate in His presence. // Helplessness unearths your need to control the situation. I find helplessness comes when I am inundated by tasks, when life is moving faster than my cardio can bare and when God is trying to remind me that HE IS IN CONTROL. I like to be in control, so this has been something He’s been walking me through a lot lately. // Anger is usually a result of  a core value being challenged and you need to process which value that is and then allow peace to be your response instead of words or actions. I tend to get angry when my core values are messed with, you know, the values in which you are rooted in? For me they are honor, justice, loyalty…when these get poked my anger sharks usually flare up. Someone once told me not to trust my feelings, and to trust Jesus instead. Which is great. But I’d like to just say that if you are rooted in Jesus, then you can trust your feelings because your feelings are rooted in Him. So its okay to have feelings, just don’t let them have you.   True Story, Chari  ]]>