Permission to Feel Badly

RZIM’s e-devotional, Slice of Infinity, continues to be the only one I receive weekly and I am always glad that I do. What a team they have! What profound insights they share! I truly urge you to sign up for this resource. I have never received SPAM or even donation requests from them—they even have my REAL email address (not my SPAM/junk email address) and all it’s ever been used for is this devotional.

Anyway …

I didn’t mean for this post to be an advertisement for RZIM. I really just wanted to encourage you all to read Margaret Manning’s lovely (deep, comforting, real) essay over in the archives from this week:

I could quote paragraph after paragraph for you, but instead, I’ll just tempt you to click through and read the entire article by quoting only one section:
 

“The comforting news of Christianity is that God is not only available to us when we feel good, but makes his dwelling with us even in the darkness of despair. We often feel in our distress that we simply have to avoid the problem, to “get out” of feeling badly. But, in fact, what is happening is that even in sorrow, even in our despair we have the hope that we are still being drawn by the gracious arms of God into closer communion. As one author notes, “What God wants is not so much our victories, but our life in the wilderness.” As the story of Elijah bears witness, even in our wilderness God will prepare a meal, provide shelter, and speak gently into our fears.”

Amen and amen.

God is with us!
O, be not afraid …