There’s another word I’m more familiar with when it comes to stuffing your feelings way down where they won’t bother anyone: denial.
In my thinking, there’s a spectrum that starts at “it’s not convenient to deal with that right now” and ends near “the only way I can cope is to ignore that thing for now, or forever…”
It seems that there was a generation of Christians, hopefully in the past, that held to the motto: Denial is next to godliness. I never would have believed it, had I not been told by my boss at a Christian school to keep it together, not show how upset I was over a major thing that happened in my life – after all, that’s how she raised her kids with her husband off to war. I think she was trying to help, but it was just so misguided…
Even so, I think a little bit of denial can be good. Well, maybe more the discipline of setting aside big emotions until you’re at a time and a place they can be dealt with appropriately. The temptation, though, is to leave the locked in the closet I stuffed them in and never open the door.
In order to be an emotionally healthy person, I’m responsible for dealing with my emotions, even the big, awful ones. When I find myself saying, Oh, that didn’t bother me, when apparently it did, my efforts would be better spent dealing with whatever it was – even if it means conflict – than convincing myself that things are okay. Today, I’m going to be asking God to show me what things I’ve stuffed, and what to do about them.
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