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Topic: Sad (07/26/07)
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TITLE: Dealing with Sadness | Previous Challenge Entry
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08/02/07 -
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Feelings, like sadness and the pain that it brings are a reality of our lives in a fallen, imperfect world.
The late Selwyn Hughes once wrote this about emotions. He said that the key to managing our feelings, is to learn how to understand them, and then handle how we are feeling.
The philosophical and scientific thinker, William James defined an emotion as “the state of mind that produces a feeing, and then manifests itself by a sensible change in the body.”
The Psalms express a range of different feelings. Writings about grappling with sadness can be found in Psalm 55:1-23. Psalms 22 and 77 express a crying out to God when feeling distress. Psalm 88:8-9 says “I am confined and cannot escape. My eyes are dim with grief.“
One of the things I remember when feeling sad is not to deny it. Feeling sad does not mean I am less of a Christian, whether this sadness is about something that has happened to me, someone I know, or something in the world.
I write this as I think of a friend who has lost a loved one in tragic circumstances. I think too, of things that I have been through that took me years to come to terms with, and how I have reacted to news of world events.
Previous generations of males grew up being taught that “boys don’t cry.” Expressing sadness does not mean that I’m less of a man. I’m glad I have people I can turn to in these times of life. I remember too, that I can take my sadness to our personal God in prayer.
My experiences of sadness have turned to relief once I have taken it to God. It’s like the Holy Spirit is prompting me, and God is saying, “I want to be here for you, You don’t have to tough this out on your own.”
1 Peter 5:7 says “Cast all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.”
In my experience, praying about the things that make me sad, has been incredibly cleansing.
Bibliography
Books
Hughes, Selwyn (1997) When Life Hurts - Knowing God is with you CWR Great Britain
Websites
Goodman, Russell Wiliam James, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/james/ Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (accesed Thursday 2 August, 2007)
Kermerling, Garth http://www.philosophypages.com/ph/jame.htm (accessed Thursday 2 August, 2007
The opinions expressed by authors may not necessarily reflect the opinion of FaithWriters.com.
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Consider looking for a "hook" to grab readers' interest in the first paragraph--perhaps a personal anecdote.
Nice little devotional.