Emotions and True Love

Trying to look put together and composed is annoying! This is especially true if you are in the trenches of postpartum depression, raging pregnancy hormones, or dealing with the normal daily stresses of Motherhood. In pregnancy and immediately postpartum, in particular, your hormones can do bizarre things to your mind and body. The affects of pregnancy hormones show up differently from person to person and are impossible to predict. One moment you may feel content as can be and the next you are a sobbing mess, sometimes for absolutely no reason at all. And then there are those “Prhangry” moments… when you know, you know. What you don’t know, when you go through a rollercoaster of emotions, at any season of Motherhood is when you are going to start feeling like “yourself” again. King David wrote about his emotions a lot, crying out to God with visceral honesty. He was not afraid to face his complex, sometimes dark emotions head on but he never stayed there either. In his heart, King David ran to God for comfort, guidance, and strength. God understands and empathizes with you more than anyone ever could, and He is the ONLY ONE who is mighty to bring you out of your pit in due time, setting your feet upon a rock and sheltering you under His mighty wing.

“I waited patiently for the Lord; he inclined to me and heard my cry. He drew me up from the pit of destruction, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure.” (Psalm 40:1-2)

“He will cover you with his pinions, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness is a shield and buckler.” (Psalm 91:4)

King David knew that he could trust God with his heart and life because he knew, and God had proven Himself to be, the epitome of true love — because true love was designed, defined, and perpetuated by God Himself. 1 John 3:1 urges us to “see what kind of love the Father has given us”. In other words, the Apostle John is pointing us to Christ in all circumstances in order to know what true love is. Our biggest example of true love is described to us in that famous verse, John 3:16; the Greek for the word love in this context is agape the highest, all-encompassing, sacrificial form of love given by grace alone, sola gratia.

When we follow Jesus, one of the appropriate responses to God’s unfailing, unmerited, limited, permanent, TRUE LOVE is to demonstrate agape love to our family, friends & neighbors, and strangers (in that order).

Questions to Ask Yourself:

  1. Who are 3 women in your life who”agape” loves you? Who will make time to listen to you without judgement, who genuinely wants to know how you are doing and speak to your heart? Thank God for those women and…

Pray for them and pray that God will grow you even closer to each other. If you don’t have women like that in your life yet, lift up that need and desire to God and trust that He is faithful to provide because He wants His people to build one another up (see Galatians 6:2, Hebrews 10:24–25, Ephesians 4:29).