Emotion is an amazing part of being human. Growing up I somehow interpreted emotion to be bad or sinful. If I felt too much love for someone or something I would pray that god would turn my heart back to him. Or if I started to feel to much pain I would ask god to take the pain away and grant me peace. Saying this I did hold on tight to the emotion of guilt and fear (but that’s a whole other blog). As I started to put less and less weight on god and his or her affects on my life AND as I came to see that it is me who needs to deal or create the life I want (I know the divine has a part in it…but the divine has given me independence to develop. To deal. To live. And to be). OK….getting around to the lesson I have been thinking about. I don’t know if its being in the city. Or working in a culture that is blunt. Or seeing/hearing of hardships all around me. Or just the situations I have been finding myself in. (its probably all of it)....That is not letting me build a wall between me and emotion: pain. LOVE. Peace. Frustration.

This past year I have felt sooo much: moments were all my insides ache. Times of great questioning. Days when I felt my heart was going to give under the weight of longing. A moment of love I felt was so physically real to me I could feel the love literally in the air. A night of pain and many minutes randomly of despair and knowledge that I will pass on the despair in bits to many. And hope. Hope as a deep continual emotion every morning and on through the day. A hope that let me believe that LOVE...will in the end bring me to a place of wholeness. Of balance. And a place were I will be able to accept and give love honestly…without terms or conditions. I am not in a bubble, as people always called west Michigan. I am saying, ‘hello emotion. Come on in.' i truly believe the divine gave humans feelings not to be denied ...yet to have them. YES...its scary!!! feelings are veRY scary. even so we can not hand them off to the divine to deal with. we can't push them aside. we have emotions to feel ReAL. To learn. To be connected to one another and to the universe. My love. My care. My joy. My comfort. My tears. And all my laughs make me who I am. The divine is more then welcome to be with me through it all…whoever you are. but i will no longer be asking for any of my emotions to be subdued. this is too good.