Tears from the Heart

I think that it is healthy to express our emotions rather than holding them in. Indeed, I spent the majority of last year facilitating people's journeys in coming to terms with their emotions. Admittedly it is not always socially healthy to express how we feel (though often it really builds a group, and deepens relationships), because it can offend, but I acknowledge the benefits of knowing someone you can speak and share your feelings with, or having a way of releasing them - such as through prayer, journalling, exercising - whatever works. Despite this belief in feelings I do not cry.

Before Bible college, I can only remember a few occasions when I had cried (often in response to a film like 'the passion'). I guess being a man, and British we learn to just mask our feelings to the extent that we are unable to release. Humans are the only animal which cries as an emotional response, and the act of doing so releases endorphins which make us feel much better; in plain English: it is a healthy human response and expression with worth-while results. There were times before Bible College where I really wanted to, but couldn't, and it was a bit sad. It was as though I could explore myself in theory, but not from the heart.

I've been at college for about five weeks now, and since starting I have cried at least twice, and keep feeling it welling up inside of me whenever I have something to bring to someone. There was one occasion where we were having a lecture on Leviticus (not the most emotional book in the Bible). Before this lecture we had been thinking about just how much God loves us. I began thinking that God doesn't just love me and want me like that, but he loves everyone like he loves me. I then thought of my friends who did not know Him yet, and I felt overwhelmed with emotion. For that hour of lectures I was devastated that God really wanted those people to know Him, and loved them, but they did not know Him. It brought me to tears to the extent that I could not forget it, and struggled to listen. There was another time when I had a word for someone in the morning about disappointing fathers, and how God does not. This word didn't feel like it was for me, but it grew so heavily on my emotional self that I cried all the way through the long walk into college. There have been a few other occasions where I have prayed with people, or felt a word and it's tugging at my emotions as well as at my head. I am finally starting to realise what empathy means, to feel as another feels and not just try and understand.

I think as this year goes on we will all continue to learn with our minds, and those minds really get pushed, but also learn with our hearts. To become softened and willing to express emotions. 

Update:

Since starting this blog I became a Counsellor. You can read more on blog on subjects like Therapy at:

 www.simonslistening.co.uk