Excerpt from "Make Sense of Your Story"

It appears that, for many people, wishing you were dead because you are overwhelmed by pain is part of life with God. It doesn't last forever, but it's real and it happens, and there's nothing unChristian about it. In fact, wanting to die is often part of the stories of people who love God.

The laments that fill the book of Job (and there are plenty of them) along with laments in other parts of scripture, give you permission to feel. And if you are a Christian, chances are you need that permission -- specifically to feel your so called negative emotions. If you are going to explore your story, you need to feel your anger, fear, and sadness. What is keeping you from feeling these feelings?

What if you prayed your feelings? Not only does the book of Job give us permission to feel, but it also gives us permission to talk with God -- candidly -- about our feelings. Job invites us to pray our feelings. To pray your feelings is to pre-reflectively pour out your feelings to God. This means pour them out before you have reflected upon your feelings and judged them as good or bad. To pray your feelings means to pour them out to God before editing your words. When was the last time you poured out your feelings to God without first making them appropriate for expression to a holy God or consistent with some sort of theology? More specifically, when was the last time you poured out your sadness to God?

If you are not regularly pouring out your anger, fear, and sadness to God, there is a reason for that. Nothing is more hardwired into the human heart than the tendency to run to someone bigger and stronger than you for help when you are in need. If you have stopped running toward someone stronger than you and stopped expressing your sadness, fear, or anger, your story will help you understand why you have stopped. Your story holds the reason. What do you need to begin running to God again and pouring out your feelings? You did this automatically as a five-year-old with your Mom or Dad, or you would have if they were available to you. 

When did you stop doing this with God?