Repressed feelings and Jesus

Most people do not know how to handle expressions of pain of others. In fact, most people do not know how to handle their own pain. Instead, they opt to pretend that nothing is wrong. That is, until the pain bubbles over, and seeps through, affecting other areas of life like an infectious sore. What could have been prevented by a mere expression of emotion instead becomes a war zone. What could have been the birthplace of healing, now becomes a place of death.

The god-man, Jesus Christ, gave the perfect example on how to express feelings. As he faced the death of a friend, and as he saw the agony of that friends family, he did the very thing that makes people cringe with discomfort. Being fully human and fully God, he bowed his head and cried.
He didn’t seem worried about the opinions of others. He could have cared less whether someone would have judged his actions as weakness. Instead, he embraced his humanity and expressed it freely.

I can’t help but wonder why so many of us refuse to do the same. As a man, I’ve been told since a child that real men don’t cry. Being a man of Mexican decent, the culture norm of machismo forbids me to cry. Yet the greatest example for all mankind expressed his emotion freely without concern of the disdain of others.

Shortly after this expression of emotion, one of the greatest miracles of all time took place. Lazarus rose from the dead.

I can’t help but wonder, how many miracles fail to actualize, simply because we are unwilling experience our feelings instead of us repressing them. Could it be possible that the miracle that we are waiting for is standing right outside our choice to express our feelings freely.

It is my hope and prayer that we would would shake of the shackles off the fear of disapproval. May we each truly embrace the freedom that comes from being all that God created us to be. Men and Women made in His image. Free to laugh, free to cry, free to smile, free to mourn. Free and empowered to face feelings with reckless abandon just as Jesus did.

Unapologetically Yours,

John Eli

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