True Feelings E-Book

Carolyn Mahaney

• Herausgeber: Crossway
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 186

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

What am I feeling? Emotions can be confusing. One moment we're happy, content, and hopeful, and the next we're anxious, hurt, and overwhelmed. But we don't have to live at the mercy of our emotions. In True Feelings, a mother-daughter team clears away common misconceptions and mixed messages about our feelings to offer us a biblical perspective on emotions— helping us understand how they work, why we feel what we feel, and how to develop good emotional habits. We will see that we don't have to ignore, excuse, or follow our feelings, but can instead learn to honor God with our emotions as an integral part of who he made us to be.

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“I love a book that is both practical and convicting, and what better topic than a biblical approach to our emotions! With careful writing, these wise women walk us through the process of identifying our feelings, and then they show us how to profit from and guide them in a God-glorifying way.”

Nancy Wilson, pastor’s wife; homemaker; grandmother of seventeen; author, Learning Contentment

“This gifted mother-and-daughter team do it again! With striking clarity, insightful illustrations, and the wisdom that comes from walking with God, Carolyn and Nicole put to rest the ever-ready excuse, ‘I just can’t help how I feel.’ They teach us from Scripture why God gave us emotions and how to interpret what those emotions reveal about our actual beliefs and values. For anyone who has ever felt confused, guilty, or exhausted by runaway emotions, True Feelings is a must read.”

Jani Ortlund, speaker, Renewal Ministries; author, Fearlessly Feminine and His Loving Law, Our Lasting Legacy

“The best books are well-written, biblically sound, have universal appeal, and offer both penetrating insight and practical help. The mother/daughter writing team of Carolyn Mahaney and Nicole Whitacre has given us such a book. Women are their primary audience, but nearly all the book is applicable to men. They’ll surprise you by showing how often the Bible speaks to the subject of emotions and thereby help you see fresh insights into familiar texts. Carolyn and Nicole are honest about the reality of negative feelings and avoid the simplistic, shallow, ‘turn lemons into lemonade’ answers. Emotions are a God-created part of each of us. They tell us what we value and move us to action. But like every other part of us they are affected by sin, yet can be sanctified for our joy and God’s glory. As every Christian can identify with this struggle, so every Christian can benefit from this book.”

Donald S. and Caffy Whitney, professor of biblical spirituality and associate dean, School of Theology, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary; author, Family Worship; and his wife, Caffy

“True Feelings is an excellent book about the goodness and grace of God in the middle of our many emotions. Carolyn and Nicole consistently point us to God's Word, and practical wisdom flows from every page. Read this book, and be reminded that the Lord alone is our help and hope, regardless of our circumstances.”

David and Heather Platt, president, International Mission Board; author, Radical; and his wife, Heather

“What do we do with our feelings? Jesus demands that every facet of our life be brought into submission to his lordship, even our emotions. Yet few Christians think about just how significant our emotions are in our daily lives. True Feelings is a needed resource that is biblically sound and theologically faithful. Carolyn Mahaney and Nicole Whitacre are sure guides for thinking biblically about our emotions as gifts of God needing redemption by the gospel of Jesus Christ.”

R. Albert Mohler Jr. and Mary Mohler, president, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary; and his wife, Mary, director, Seminary Wives Institute, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

“Through their careful research and engaging style, Carolyn and Nicole will leave you glad that God has given us emotions, less afraid of the more painful ones, more able to listen to what emotions are saying, and expectant that they can be refined and sanctified.”

Ed Welch, counselor; faculty member, The Christian Counseling & Educational Foundation; author, Shame Interrupted and Side by Side

True Feelings

True Feelings

God’s Gracious and Glorious Purpose for Our Emotions

Carolyn Mahaney and Nicole Whitacre

True Feelings: God’s Gracious and Glorious Purpose for Our Emotions

Copyright © 2017 by Carolyn Mahaney and Nicole Whitacre

Published by Crossway1300 Crescent StreetWheaton, Illinois 60187

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided for by USA copyright law. Crossway® is a registered trademark in the United States of America.

Cover design: Crystal Courtney

First printing 2017

Printed in the United States of America

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture references marked NIV are taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

All emphases in Scripture quotations have been added by the authors.

Trade paperback ISBN: 978-1-4335-5247-2ePub ISBN: 978-1-4335-5250-2PDF ISBN: 978-1-4335-5248-9Mobipocket ISBN: 978-1-4335-5249-6

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Mahaney, Carolyn, 1955– author.

Title: True feelings : God’s gracious and glorious purpose for our emotions / Carolyn Mahaney and Nicole Whitacre.

Description: Wheaton : Crossway, 2017. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016049760 (print) | LCCN 2017009547 (ebook) | ISBN 9781433552472 (tp) | ISBN 9781433552489 (pdf) | ISBN 9781433552496 (mobi) | ISBN 9781433552502 ( epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Emotions—Religious aspects—Christianity.

Classification: LCC BV4597.3 .M34 2017 (print) | LCC BV4597.3 (ebook) | DDC 248.4—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016049760

Crossway is a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

2022-03-01 04:03:55 PM

To the girlies—Caly, Tori, MJ, Sophie, Claire, and Summer

Contents

Foreword by Joni Eareckson Tada

Introduction: The Soaring Pays for the Thud . . . Or Does It?

 1  Fact, Fiction, and Feelings

 2  The Gift of Emotions

 3  Why Do I Feel This Way?

 4  Feeling Good

 5  Emotional Emergency Measures

 6  How Do I Control My Emotions?

 7  Act to Feel

 8  God’s Purpose in Pain

 9  Godly Emotions for Life

Notes

General Index

Scripture Index

Foreword

Every woman loves . . . and despises them.

I’m talking about emotions. When your feelings rise to euphoric delight, your heart longs to live there, like: This is me, the true me . . . this is who God destined me to be. The next day, a burnt casserole, broken dishwasher, and a stubbed toe have you feeling depressed and fuming: Yep, this is me, the true me . . . this is who God destined me to be, an emotional basket case: happy one day, crashing the next.

But before you cry, “Oh God, who will rescue me from this body of sin and death?” (Paul’s words, not mine), remember this: Christ died for all of you, not just your body and spirit, but your emotions too. God is into redeeming everything about you, even your fluctuating feelings. And as a follower of Jesus, you have the glad-hearted assistance of the Holy Spirit in taming them.

Need help? Sure, you do. And this is why I am glad you have True Feelings: God’s Gracious and Glorious Purpose for Our Emotions. My friend Carolyn Mahaney, with the aid of her daughter Nicole Whitacre, writes a compelling and glorious guide for every woman seeking to understand her emotions from God’s point of view. And not only understand, but subdue and even appreciate them.

In Carolyn and Nicole, you will find two trusted friends. Seasoned Christians who understand emotional upheavals and deep disappointments, they have a true heart to help other women move forward into Christ-honoring maturity. Carolyn and Nicole know that your emotions have to come along on that ride . . . and thus, the reason for this book.

If you want your feelings to conform to the Lord and Savior who utterly delights in you, whose emotions overflow for you, then you will find a worthy guide and companion in True Feelings.So get started, turn the page, and be blessed by Carolyn Mahaney and Nicole Whitacre’s wise reflections. I have a feeling you are going to like this book!

Joni Eareckson Tada

Joni and Friends International Disability Center

Agoura Hills, California

Introduction

The Soaring Pays for the Thud ... Or Does It?

John Calvin Layman was not a man in touch with his feelings. Each day he woke his sons before dawn and strode ahead of them to the barn where forty cows were stomping and snorting in the frigid air waiting to be milked. If his boys didn’t feel like coming out from under the warm covers, they would feel a whole lot worse five minutes later when their father poured a bucket of cold water on them in their bed. John Calvin Layman never said anything twice.

Our esteemed ancestor, John Calvin Layman, was a Mennonite dairy farmer in rural Virginia. A short, solid, serious man of Swiss-German stock, he had ten children, of whom Carolyn’s father, Ezra, was the seventh. In many ways, Ezra grew up to be like his father. He rose every day at four and drove a company truck to his job as a construction superintendent. He took his family to church twice on Sunday and every Wednesday evening. Ezra was gentle and hardworking, a man of strong, quiet conviction. He wasn’t what you would call emotional. Neither is Carolyn.

You can imagine her culture shock when she joined her husband’s gregarious Irish family in the Maryland suburbs. They were passionate and talkative, the men cried as often as the women (if not more!), and they all went into full-blown mourning every time their beloved Washington Redskins lost to the Dallas Cowboys.

Sometimes Carolyn wondered how to access the emotional world of her expressive preacher husband. She watched CJ worship and weep, wishing that she could feel the same joy and enthusiasm. She even felt guilty at times for not feeling as passionate for God as he seemed to. Even-keeled Carolyn and her loud, humorous husband had three daughters in quick succession: Nicole, Kristin, and Janelle; a son, Chad, was born twelve years later. Nicole, the oldest, inherited her emotional makeup from her father’s side of the family, her personality bearing little resemblance to her Layman ancestors.

Once, when Nicole was sixteen years old, she traveled to India on a short-term mission trip. It was a three-week adrenaline rush. The team touched down in the sweltering city of New Delhi and boarded a train for the twenty-hour trip to the southern city of Hyderabad. Nicole bunked in a beautiful stone monastery, gained five pounds eating piles of delicious naan bread and potatoes, and was fitted for a bright green and saffron-colored sari by a local seamstress. She even walked the white marble floors of the Taj Mahal. Nicole’s group visited villages and town squares doing open-air evangelism, and she had the privilege of praying with people to receive Christ. She felt exhilarated, inspired, and fulfilled. This was the life, and this was how she always wanted to feel.

Then she came home to her cookie-cutter house in the suburbs, to long afternoons as a church receptionist, and to six more weeks of summer where the most exciting event was the free-swim hour at the local pool. She was restless, discontent, and irritable. She wanted to feel those exhilarating feelings again as soon as possible. Nicole has always lived life at full throttle; her emotional switch came set on high. Whatever she feels, she feels it strongly.

As a mother and daughter, we share the same curve of mouth and slight stature, but we’re different emotional creatures. Our differences are mirrored by an exchange between the fictional mother and daughter, Marilla Cuthbert and Anne Shirley, in the book Anne of Avonlea. Marilla says to her adopted daughter, Anne:

“It seems to me, Anne, that you are never going to outgrow your fashion of setting your heart so on things and then crashing down into despair because you don’t get them.”

“I know I’m much too inclined that way,” agreed Anne ruefully. “When I think something nice is going to happen I seem to fly right up on the wings of anticipation; and then the first thing I realize I drop down to earth with a thud. But really, Marilla, the flying part is glorious as long as it lasts . . . it’s like soaring through a sunset. I think it almost pays for the thud.”

“Well, maybe it does,” admitted Marilla. “I’d rather walk calmly along and do without both flying and thud.”1

Walking calmly along, like Marilla, is what Laymans have done for generations, Carolyn not excepting. Nicole is like a blond-haired Anne, flying up on wings of anticipation and then crashing down into despair. Imagine Marilla Cuthbert and Anne Shirley writing a book together, and that’ll give you an idea of what’s ahead.

But that’s only half the story. We may be emotional opposites, but we share a common curiosity and enthusiasm to learn what the Bible has to say about a woman’s feelings.2 Over the past couple of decades, we have studied God’s Word and as many biblical resources as we could find on the complex topic of emotions. Whatever wisdom you find in these pages, we first learned from someone else. But we do have a lot of personal experience with emotions. Carolyn raised three daughters—a household full of hormones. They are all married now, and Nicole has two of the six granddaughters in the family. Our lives are fairly spilling over with feelings.

This is a book we wrote for ourselves as well as for the women and girls in our family whom we love. We also wrote this book for you. It’s been an emotional journey. These pages echo with our laughter and are wet with more than a few of our tears. It has also been a surprising journey of learning about God’s gracious and glorious purpose for our emotions. Our simple prayer is that every woman who reads this book will be surprised and delighted by how God created her to feel.

1

Fact, Fiction, and Feelings

Carolyn grew up near the shores of Lido Beach on the Gulf Coast of Florida. Here the white sand sparkles like quartz, pearly-pink coquinas dot the beach, and turquoise waves gently lap the shore. But powerful rip currents sometimes lurk beneath the tranquil waters. These narrow bands of swiftly moving water can pull even the strongest swimmer away from shore and out to sea. Rip currents pop up without warning, move at a breathtaking pace, and sap the strength of any swimmer who panics and tries to swim straight to shore. Tragically, many people lose their lives to these dangerous currents every year.

Carolyn remembers her mom, a perpetual worrier, warning her children before they went to the beach: “Whatever you do, watch out for rip currents!” The kids learned to be vigilant after a storm and especially careful when they swam out to a sandbar. One year, two friends from Canada, a brother and sister, came to visit and spend time at the beach. They were floating on their rafts when they drifted into one of these rip currents. Carolyn and her siblings watched, horrified, as the two friends tried to paddle back to shore, but the current took them farther and farther out to sea. Thankfully, one of the lifeguards on duty swam out to rescue Carolyn’s frightened and exhausted friends. This experience lent new solemnity to her mother’s warnings.

Our emotions can feel like an ocean full of rip currents. We’re floating along on a sea of happy feelings when suddenly we get caught in a powerful current of anxiety, a fast-moving river of anger, or an unforeseen tide of depression. One moment we feel fine, and the next moment we are overwhelmed by hurt and bitterness, or we are jealous and upset. Your husband makes a comment. A friend shows off her ring. The toddler pours his milk all over the floor. A song replays your sadness. Instantaneously. All of a sudden. Out of the blue.

Emotional rip currents pull us into a whirlpool of confusion. “My emotions have extreme ups and downs,” one college student wrote to us. “The hardest thing for me is understanding why they’re there. Is it just hormones? Is it just because I’m tired? Is it the Devil attacking me? Or is it a reflection of how far away from God I am? Does it even matter where the feelings are coming from? It’s so confusing.” The questions come so fast that we can’t keep pace. We worry that our fluctuating emotions mean that we are not trusting God or that we must be sinning in some way. Even those of us who aren’t very emotional can wonder if something is wrong with us. We can’t figure out why we feel (or don’t feel) the way we do or what God wants us to do with our feelings—and so confusion leads to condemnation.

Feelings can be so unpleasant that at times we would rather do without them altogether. Gloomy feelings follow us around like Eeyore’s cloud. Guilty feelings from the past won’t leave us alone. We can’t even feel happy in the present without worrying that something bad is going to happen in the future. And when something bad does happen, our emotions only make it worse. Not to mention that everyone else seems happy, and this makes us more miserable. Social media reinforces this perception: “Facebook is a constant bombardment of everyone else’s great news,” observed the author of a recent study, “but many of us look out of the window and see grey skies and rain. . . . This makes the Facebook world, where everyone’s showing their best side, seem even more distortedly bright by contrast.”1 On social media, television, and even at church on Sundays, everyone appears to be happy. Everyone, that is, except for us. We take this distorted perception of reality and assume we should be feeling happy all the time too. But we don’t, and so we feel even more depressed.

Many of us bury our unhappy emotions, keep a tight lid on them, stuff them deep down inside. Others of us explode and vent. Bad feelings lead to hasty reactions and poor decisions—which only brew more bad feelings of frustration, failure, shame, and regret. We make a mess of things because we feel bad, and then we feel bad because we made a mess of things. Another young woman wrote to tell us about her trouble with her feelings: “I get so discouraged when, for an ungodly and completely ridiculous reason, I get frustrated or very sad. These feelings immediately intensify as I am even more upset by the mere fact that I am feeling them. It’s stupid, irrational, and so far from the holiness and Christlikeness that I desire. I never wanted to act like this—like a teenager. I feel utterly ridiculous.”

I never wanted to act like this—like a hormonal teenager or an angry mom or a needy wife or an emotional woman. We all want to act mature, but our emotions often trip us up, sending us to the back of the godliness line. Not to mention that our feelings can sometimes make things awkward. The men in our lives don’t seem to understand us, and we worry about showing too much emotion. We’re embarrassed to laugh too loudly or cry at the wrong time. We don’t want to be viewed as weak or vulnerable, but we feel powerless to resist the emotional rip currents in our lives. We don’t know where they come from, when they will surface, or how to control them. We panic. We paddle. We drift into despair as the shoreline of serenity recedes into the distance.

Feelings feel bad. They feel unpredictable, confusing, and difficult to control. As Martyn Lloyd-Jones, a medical doctor and a pastor, famously put it, “I suppose that one of the greatest problems in our life . . . is the right handling of our feelings and emotions. Oh, the havoc that is wrought and the tragedy, the misery and the wretchedness that are to be found in the world simply because people do not know how to handle their own feelings!”2 The good doctor was right. Emotional rip currents are one of the biggest problems in the Christian life.

A Sisterhood of Struggle

We all share in a sisterhood of struggle with our emotions. “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man” (1 Cor. 10:13). This verse offers solace to each of us when it comes to our feelings. Our temptations are common. Charles Spurgeon, a famous nineteenth-century pastor who wrestled with depression, wrote:

I know that you are tempted to think that you are a lone traveler on a road and that nobody has ever traversed before you; but if you carefully examine the track, you can discover the footprints of some of the best of God’s servants who have passed along that wearisome way. It is a very dark lane, you say—one that might truly be called, “Cut-throat Lane.” Ah! but you will find that apostles have been along that way . . . martyrs have been that way, and the best of God’s saints have been tempted just as you now are.3

“The best of God’s saints” have traveled the rough road of emotions. You are not unique. You are not alone.

Knowing that we are not alone can help. We find comfort in connecting with someone who “gets” us, who feels the same way we do. How much more comforting is it that the men and women of Scripture and church history felt the same as us, not to mention countless Christians all over the world today? If we could talk to them, face-to-face, they would surely exclaim, “I know what you mean!” and “I feel the same way!” Every feeling you have ever experienced has been felt by countless other Christians, many of whom were pillars of the faith.

In the process of writing this book, the women in our family—mother, daughters, and granddaughters—attended the public memorial service for the well-known