I’ve been thinking about birthdays lately. Perhaps this is because both my wife and I have celebrations coming soon. Birthdays have a way of surfacing a lot of feelings and memories.
When our granddaughter turned two years old, there was the usual gathering of friends and family to celebrate. The children wore festive birthday hats. During the happy, fun-filled event, the birthday girl happened to pull the elastic below her chin that held her hat in place. When she let it go, it snapped back and painfully taught a lesson about elastic material. If you stretch it and let go – it will snap back.
Instantly, tears replaced the fun, and we all winced at how it must have hurt. Mom quickly picked up the little one, gently removed the hat, and offered comforting words. Eventually, the sting subsided, and the tears dried. The chin was fine. The party continued.
Enduring in Hope
Our humanity seems particularly vulnerable to hurt, both physical and emotional. Sometimes these dimensions blend.
Feelings are a mysterious part of our experience, and when they are hurt deeply, it becomes difficult to imagine better times. We endure in hope even if we don’t feel like doing so. Often people are present to console, encourage, and embrace us in our suffering. Sometimes it is hard to ask for this kind of emotional support. We like to think of ourselves as resilient and self-reliant. Yet, our vulnerabilities have a way of connecting us in mutual consolation.
I had a professor years ago who said, “We have feelings about our feelings.” We’ve all had the experience of not liking the way we feel.
Prayerful Discernment
I wonder if our Creator gave us the capacity to feel so that we might be sensitive to each other. Our feelings teach us about ourselves and how to be responsive to each other’s needs. We learn to seek the Lord with fullness of heart and mind. There is a richness to our emotional life that helps expand our humanity, compassion, and insight into our thinking and values. It is good to listen to how we feel. It is essential to prayerful discernment, the practice of discovering how the Holy Spirit gracefully informs our decisions.
“And Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart.” (Luke 2:19)
As we pray with our families, we might want to consider bringing our feelings to our prayer, even when we don’t feel like praying.