I was saved during the Alpha Course (now Bridge Course) in the winter of 2000. Back then, I dressed heavily goth and was severely depressed and suicidal. By God’s grace, he opened my heart to the gospel at the retreat, and I came home wanting to live.
In July 2022, on a Tuesday evening, an eclectic group of seven gathered in the Philadelphia airport to fly to the Worship God conference in Louisville, Kentucky. We ranged in age from teens to 60s, and though we all knew each other from church, most of us hadn’t interacted much, beyond a passing conversation once or twice.
When you hear the word emotions what comes to mind? I’m guessing that tucked somewhere in most responses would be the thought that they are involuntary, unpredictable, at times overwhelming, and most definitely uncontrollable.
So how do we understand these things called emotions?
I recently read Eve in Exile: And the Restoration of Femininity by Rebekah Merkle. Okay, I actually listened to the audio book while I washed dishes in the evenings. It was the time this mom had, but I’m pretty sure it still counts as reading.
Rebekah’s basic premise is that we have lost our understanding of what biblical femininity is, partly due to the culture’s all-out efforts to promote a form of feminism. It has seeped into our daily function in ways we don’t even realize.
We don’t like when people in our lives aren’t “real”, when they sugarcoat their struggles and only show us a glossy façade of their thoughts and feelings. We want to know people, and we want them to know us, and that is a godly desire.
But in our quest for “real,” are we committed to seeking the genuine article or are we stopping short at the feet of cheap imitations?