From my own experience of going through very tough moments in life, I have learned the value of understanding that my sometimes loud emotions in response to whatever happened can get in the way of me hearing the Lord.
Especially if what I experienced was overwhelming to me.
At these moments, whenever I would sit still, my emotions would feel like they were draped upon my shoulders insisting on being a burden for me to have.
Emotions, good and bad, are not wrong to have.
If it is anger or sorrow that is clouding your mind, holding you back from finding respite in the Lord, then allow these emotions to process in a healthy way.
Healthy ways to process such overwhelming emotions can look like writing what you feel or journaling, creating something you enjoy, going on walks, and even talking out loud to the Lord of what you are feeling while not holding back in being honest with Him.
The times I come before the Lord and find myself feeling stuck, where I cannot move into prayer and praise or studying His Word, I ask the Holy Spirit to help me process what is going on inside of my heart.
Challenging events in our lives can leave us with conflicting emotions or layered emotions. I have often sat at the foot of my bed not understanding the emotions I was feeling.
And in time, as I pushed to work through what I was feeling I would finally be able to articulate what was going on inside of me.
I believe this is why the enemy will come to bring even more confusion in these times. We are desperately trying to sort out what is going on within us and he just adds fuel to the fire, making us feel worse and confused.
Pushing through to hear the voice of God is extremely important at this point. You might not hear Him on day one, or even day two and three, but pursue Him anyways and ask Him to help you hear what He is saying.
We want to hear His voice and place significance on it over our own voice and any other voice that has come to distract and pull us away from the Lord.
I have had multiple instances where the Holy Spirit was encouraging me to cry it all out. I always fight Him on this and I know better. Crying it out allows us to feel the unwanted pain, yet once the tears flow the pain can then be released into His hands.
Now I find myself asking God to grace me to shed tears, to work through my pain, and to then bring me His comfort and healing.
And according to the depth of pain that we have, these moments of processing through the pain can be a process. It is not always over in one night of tissues strewn across our bedroom floors, the pain might return again.
And if it does, see it as an invitation of the Holy Spirit to bring you into more healing by Him.
If the pain is too overwhelming, do not hesitate to seek out a friend you can trust and/or a good counselor.
I pray and speak healing to each heart that is reading this article in the name of Jesus.