Achievers are notorious for sacrificing their emotions on the altar of performance and productivity. Can we agree that Jesus has a better way for us?
Kerri Strug is at the end of the vault runway at the Olympic Games in July 1996. Her first attempt has left her with an injured ankle. She runs toward the vault again, sticks the landing on one good ankle and one bad, and then crumples to the mat. This memory sticks with me because she showed courage, she put the team before the individual, and her perseverance trumped pain. The glory came in the doing, and the gold came in the getting up.
Kerri showed strength by tucking away the pain and getting on with the job she needed to perform. However, I wrongly apply that model of strength to my emotions: I tuck away my feelings so I can just get on with it. Achievers have an inexplicable need to be perceived as strong. Showing any feeling seems to signal a weakness in our armor, leaving us feeling vulnerable. Vulnerability is to be avoided at all costs.
During my time in higher education, I worked with a difficult set of faculty so I wrote “Unflappable” on a Post-It Note and stuck it to the top of my computer monitor.
Here’s how my unflappability, my need to tuck away my emotions, manifests itself: I wear a game face of a smile, my sound bite is “I’m fine,” and my game plan is busy, always busy, busy, busy.
I know deep down that emotions were created by God so they must be good. The Jesus, the real Jesus from the Bible, was a downright emotional guy. He got sad and cried when Lazarus died (John 11:35). He was compassionate toward people who seemed lost and harassed (Matthew 9:36). He got angry when merchants made a mockery of His Dad’s house and people were shut out of worship (John 2:17).
I think that being strong, impenetrable even, is the right move. This seems crazy in light of the fact that my Savior never lived an unemotional, detached life. Being like Jesus means being all in, totally present, and feeling all the feelings. God gives us a mind, a body, a soul, a heart, and He intends for all these parts to come together to form a whole. Being wholly and completely human and 100% Jill doesn’t mean tucking away the pain, but delving into it with Jesus holding my hands all the way. It means naming what is stirring in my heart and then giving it to Him.
Yet I live out of a different operating system; one that says you can’t possibly hurt my feelings if I pretend that I have none at all. This approach comes from a desire for self-protection (from being hurt by others and from feeling the insecurity and shame) and a pride that says I never have needs or hurts. Achievers are always the protectors, the need-meeters and the soul-fixers. So when we can’t protect, meet needs or fix all the things, we turn to busyness for distraction. This belief system makes no room for emotions, vulnerability, and, ultimately, God.
If I believe that I have no needs, no hurts, no wants, and no feelings then I don’t really need a god, I only need myself. But I know this isn’t right. There’s a disconnect between what I know and what I believe.
God asks me to cast my emotions on Him because He cares for me. Even when I’m overwhelmed, I can trust that He isn’t.
A few months ago, I was in my counselor’s office and had just finished praying with her, telling God how angry I was with Him. Why couldn’t He take my struggle away? Why was all of this so hard? My prayer was as honest as I knew how to be, and I was taken aback by it. I had told God that I was mad. At Him.
And friends, I wasn’t struck by lightning because of my honesty. I actually think God was like, “Finally! Some honesty. I knew it was in you. That’s good! Keep telling me what’s stirring in your heart. Don’t tuck it away. Let’s expose it to the light.”
Achievers, just like you, I am Going Rogue with feeling all the feelings. I don’t have this completely figured out. But what I do know in my brain and in my heart is that to live wholly, I cannot live disengaged from my emotions. I don’t want to be the Kerri Strug of emotions by tucking away the pain with my game face, my sound bite, and my game plan of busy. God made me, my emotions, and He wants to hear about them so I can be made whole. What is on your heart today that needs to be shared with Him?