Emotions—love them or hate them, we’ve all got them. And we’ve all got to figure out what to do with them. But wait—can we do anything about our emotions? Can we learn how to identify, express, experience—and yes, sometimes wrangle—our feelings in order to live a vibrant, healthy, fruitful life for Jesus?
Elizabeth Laing Thompson uses her experiences as a big feeler to encourage and equip different kinds of feelers with the biblical perspectives, practical tools, and scriptural reservoir they need through her books All the Feels and All the Feels for Teens.
As a woman who has lived every day of her life having All The Big Feelings All The Day Long, Elizabeth knows what it’s like to live life through our emotions—and how important it is to understand, take control of, and grow from those emotions. Whether you have a sensitive soul with more feelings than you know how to name, a logical personality that doesn’t quite know what to do with feelings, or a steady flow of emotions somewhere in the middle, this episode will help you:
- discover your own God-designed “feelings style” and how it impacts your life and relationships,
- distinguish fact from feeling and figure out which feelings you can trust, and
- understand which emotional gifts God wants you to expand, explore, and enjoy.
Get ready to throw open the doors of your heart, bringing God to your emotions and your emotions to God—the One who invented feelings and who always welcomes yours.
Plus we chat about Elizabeth’s other books When God Says No, When God Says Wait, and When God Says Go! So much goodness in one episode!
Quotes:
“My emotional life has had to become intertwined with my faith. How do I submit my feelings to God’s ways when my feelings don’t agree with what God says?”
“God made me this way on purpose.”
“It’s our way of reflecting God’s heart.”
“It has helped me to find lifeline Scriptures. How do I line what I’m feeling up with God’s Word?”
“We shoulder the emotions because we didn’t bring them to God.”
“Bring your emotions to God. He can handle it. He can help you grow through what you are going through.”
“I propose there are three different feeling styles: the big feeler, reluctant feelers, and steady feelers. We all need each other.”
“Make sure everybody has a space to share their feelings and that those feelings are respected.”
“I couldn’t find the goodness of God. I felt like if you love me, how could you allow all of this all at once? It’s too much for my heart.”
“Grief had blinded me.”
“Your circumstances may not change, but you can see Him in them.”
“The longer you live on earth, the more nos you accumulate.”
“It’s not that God is unkind, it’s that He wants to point you to the best things.”
“If I don’t understand the no, I can still trust His heart.”
Psalm 86
“I don’t wait well. God has used the waiting to shape me and refine my faith. He’s taught me a whole lot of lessons that I didn’t want to learn but that I needed to.”
“How am I going to wait and who am I going to become?”
“How can I still be joyful while I’m sad?”
“It exposed every fear and insecurity I had.”
“If God tells you to go, you can know He is going with you.”
“Our fears are often unfounded.”
“Sometimes God is saying go and it’s not some dramatic life change. Sometimes He is saying stay right where you are, but go to a different level.”
“How can God redeem the hard parts of this?”
This week’s love offering is to “love someone else through their hard time. Comfort those who need comforted. That is how we redeem those difficult times.”
“Never underestimate small acts of service. What we see a small God uses as beautiful offerings to make a big difference.”
Connect with Elizabeth:
https://facebook.com/
https://instagram.com/
Did you love today’s podcast?
Sign up to receive your weekly love offering.
