Your Permission Slip

Sometimes we adults need permission just like children, so here's my permission slip for your grown-up heart.

It's ok to feel what you're feeling right now.

I've been struggling lately with a lot of big feelings, and rather than lean into them and learn what they're trying to teach me, I've been running from them. Ignoring them. Denying that they're there.

But in the darkness and silence, those few minutes alone in an empty car, they cry out to me. They call my name and catch my breath and demand to be noticed. So I'm trying. It's so much easier for me, the one who flees rather than fights, to shut them out and pretend them away. But all that has left me with is unresolved sadness, unreconciled hurt, and unmet longings.

So here I am, trying to listen to what my heart needs me to hear. And I'm giving you permission to do the same. I'm also giving you permission to tell God what you feel. Yes, He knows, but I'm learning that He wants us to trust Him enough to take it to Him. All of it. Those big feelings, where you feel alone and afraid and like He loves everyone but you? Take them. Those feelings that say you'll never be good enough; those feelings that say He won't do for you what He has done for others? Take them. Those feelings that say "I'm spinning my wheels and I'm on a never-ending treadmill and my life is adding up to one big nothing?" Take them. He can handle them - and handle them, He can. When we stuff them down and pretend they're not there and smile like everything's ok? That's not handling them.

Honesty is the first step. Don't ask me how I know.

So. You, with the welling tears and the heart beating fast? Feel those feelings. Give their darkness some light. Give their secret places some visibility. Give yourself some relief. Feel them, then heal.

You have my permission.