Psalm 34:4 "I sought the Lord, and He answered me, And delivered me from all my fears."

For those of you who didn't know, I worked with teens for nine years. My husband (Josh) and I recently stepped down from leading the youth group at our church and have taken up encouraging the new leaders as we embark on the One Voice adventure. All this to say, over those nine years I was approached many, many, many times by parents who thought we were crazy for wanting to work with youth. For me in particular, they couldn't understand why I would want to work with emotional teenage girls. When you take into account that I began working with teens when I was still one, it shouldn't come as a shock that I still had vivid memories of my years between 11 and 15. (We won't discuss how well I remember them now, give me a break ok?) I consider those years as probably the most emotionally volatile years of a young girl's life. How do you deal with 10-20 teenage girls all going through that time at once? I learned early on a key--All Feelings Are Valid. Just because I was not under the same assault of 20-30 emotions attacking me within a 10 second time period didn't mean that the emotionally overwrought teenager wasn't validly having to deal with them. Nor did it make whatever the situation was- a broken shoe lace or broken heart -less vitally important.

The past few months God has been giving me a loving lesson in learning to walk in His Spirit instead of my emotions. As I was pondering today about some of the not so enjoyable emotions that welled up during a conversation with my wonderful husband I was tempted to force myself to dismiss them. But God reminded me of something--- All Feelings Are Valid. As Josh and I look back at the last year of changes (spotlight James) and forward to the possibility of coming changes (spotlight One Voice of Worship) I must remind myself that I will have emotional responses to events and decisions...and that's ok. God does not want me to ignore the emotions that come, He wants me to place them in His hands. I would encourage you to read all of Psalm 34, but I'll give you a few excerpts. 6"This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him And saved him out of all his troubles." 15"The eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous And His ears are open to their cry." 17-18"The righteous cry, and the Lord hears And delivers them out of all their troubles. The Lord is near to the brokenhearted And saves those who are crushed in spirit." These aren't meant to be a magic solution to life's difficult emotions, but they really encouraged me today to bring my emotions to my heavenly Father instead of acting out of them-especially in fear. God is teaching me that walking in His Spirit doesn't necessarily change my situation, but it should most definitely change my reaction to it.

What does this look like? Well, today it looks like sitting before God for a bit and telling Him how I feel about the things my husband has asked me to pray about, and then choosing to pray for God's will in our lives despite my fear. What does it look like for you?