Guest Post by Jennie Allen

When our oldest son, Conner, was two years old, soon after his baby sister arrived, I decided we needed an outing.

So, we loaded up the car and went to the mall with my mom and sister. Somehow in the giant Dallas mall, Conner disappeared.

He was wearing a bright-orange shirt and had striking sun-bleached blond hair, yet he just vanished from everyone’s sight. An hour passed, and I had to make the most difficult call of my life to tell my husband that our son could not be found.

No one wants to make that call.

No one wants to get that call.

The store had been shut down and locked, and every clerk was looking for him. The police were called. A solid hour after he had been lost, one of the staff in Banana Republic heard a little movement.

They pushed back the clothing and found Conner hiding between a wall and a rack of pants. By the time I found our son, he was crying.

I’ve never been happier to see anyone in my life.

He was crying because that entire time he heard us looking for him and screaming his name, all he could think was that he was going to get in trouble.

So he didn’t speak. He sat there terrified, hiding behind the pants in Banana Republic.

“Please hear me: You don’t have to tell everyone; you have to tell someone.“

Maybe you are well versed in hiding behind the pants. You’d rather sit there quietly with all your emotions and feelings tucked inside than risk them coming out if you face the gravity and reality that awaits you. So you stay glued to the wall.

And yet it does not change the fact that circumstances are waiting for you that must be confronted and that will not go away just because you hide behind the pants. In fact, the more time that goes by, the more desperate, chaotic, and needy your realities become.

Please hear me: You don’t have to tell everyone; you have to tell someone.

I know the damage that can flow out of a reaction to our emotions; I know the beauty they can catalyze too.

Emotions are tools. Which means that whenever we feel an emotion, we can use that feeling to spur us on toward God, or we can use it to sit there and sin.

“Emotions are tools. Which means that whenever we feel an emotion, we can use that feeling to spur us on toward God, or we can use it to sit there and sin.“

Here’s what we can’t do if we want to live healthy and free: We can’t stuff the thing and just move on.

I think of my son who gets in the car after the turbulence of middle school. Some days he explodes and tells me every hard thing about his day and we go to McDonald’s and get a shake and cheeseburger and by four o’clock he is laughing. And on some days, he holds it in, maybe because of shame or just sheer exhaustion, and by dinner he is exploding on one of us.

It’s exhausting how much energy we burn trying to keep our box of emotions hidden and neatly out of view.

And even with all that effort, stuffed emotions inevitably find their way out, oftentimes sideways on the people we love. Boxes stuffed with feelings can’t stay closed forever.

I’ll say it again: You don’t have to tell everyone; you have to tell someone.

How are you really? The skilled concealers love the word “fine”. It is the greatest rug to lay out over all the unsightly places in our lives. “Fine” is short and grammatically correct and leads to very few additional questions.

But it also doesn’t do a single thing to help sort out that tangle of emotions you’ve stuffed into a box in the corner of your heart.

“As he started to heal, he began to bring healing to others. This is how it goes.“

As an example of how the strategy of concealing our emotions can affect your soul and your body—all of you—my son-in-law Charlie, graciously gave me permission to tell you about his going to therapy for the first time in his entire life.

Charlie is a guy who has always been fine. He’s super easygoing, not easily revved up by circumstances, the kind of person who takes things as they come and whose internal motor runs smoothly almost seven days a week.

But some stuff has been coming up for Charlie recently, stuff that he thought he should address. The collective suggestion from his friends and family sounded something like, “We’re going to pray for you. Have you talked to a doctor about how you’re feeling? What about therapy? Have you ever been to therapy?”

He got the message.

So, Charlie went to therapy for his first time. And when he got home, he proceeded to take a five-hour nap. In the middle of the afternoon. When he later told the rest of us what had happened, we all laughed together with him. Because we had all been there before too.

“… there is a better way to respond to emotions: fully embracing the purpose they were made for—connection.“

And then guess what Charlie did? He made another appointment with that therapist. After that next meeting, he called and booked him again. And again. And again. And again.

Once he got on his feet emotionally, he started telling his friends about how much better and clearer he felt. He started having deeper, more substantive conversations with those guys, listening to them more intently and kindly than many of them had ever experienced in their lives. As he started to heal, he began to bring healing to others. This is how it goes.

It’s hard to unlearn the patterns that have been ingrained in us.

But if we choose the easiest paths every time, if we check out through controlling and coping and concealing, we miss the best parts of life. The parts we are actually craving.

Because there is a better way to respond to emotions: fully embracing the purpose they were made for—connection.

Connection to God and connection to others.

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{ Our humble thanks to WaterBrook for their partnership in today’s devotional.}