I’ve recently realized that many who are reading this are like me….our suffering is ongoing, chronic, continual, likely permanent on earth, but with lots of ups and downs.
No wonder our emotions follow that same pattern!
We can’t be stoic about this. It hurts, we grieve losses daily, fears creep into our thoughts, anger wells up. And, we can also feel happy, excited, hopeful, loved. Sometimes, we’re so flooded with mixed emotions that we become numb and robotic. Have you noticed how much of a day holds it all?
Our emotions naturally arise in response to our circumstances. Beloved in Christ, I’ve learned that emotions are not sin. They’re just a part of how God designed our bodies and brains. We can’t stuff or fake them. This only makes ongoing suffering worse.
Our emotions in God’s brain design
God’s beautiful design of our emotions is produced in the brain’s limbic system.
This region of our brains includes:
- the hypothalamus, which activates the “flight-or-fight” part of our autonomic nervous system (the sympathetic nervous system) and produces stress hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline;
- the amygdala that works to reduce anxiety or fears of potential dangers;
- the hippocampus, a storage area for long-term memories;
- and the cingulate cortex which regulates our attention and focusing ability.
By God’s design, the limbic system, or our “feeling” brain, operates automatically in response to what we experience; we become aware of emotions and “feel” when the brain begins its cascading work.
Singing our emotions to God, His gift to help us love Him as we suffer
Yet, we don’t like the “negative” emotions, do we? We so often want to squelch them, distract ourselves, or fake a smile because they can overwhelm our thoughts and seem to foster a temptation to sin.
Once this occurs, singing can be emotionally helpful toward “loving God” with all our hearts, just as Jesus tells us to! God gave us an instrument with which to love Him…our singing voice.
Though you have not seen [Jesus], you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory (1 Pet. 1:8 ESV).
God’s kind gift is to delight and comfort us when we pray-sing our honest emotions to Him, especially when suffering threatens to silence our song entirely. With the constant physical changes in our brain, singing songs of praise and adoration can change our emotions to become what God’s Word describes…
God’s love and joy, singing into our emotions
What’s one way? By singing of our joy found in the gospel, God’s love story for us in Christ.
Within the limbic or emotional system of our brains, singing what is true about God’s love for us in Christ is beholding our loving God! It’s His gift to heal our unwanted emotions as He changes our thought focus in soul-wearying circumstances.
My lips will shout for joy, when I sing praises to you; my soul also, which you have redeemed (Ps. 71:23 ESV, emphasis added).
A story of sing-praying our emotions as we suffer
The mother of an adult daughter who has a rare genetic duplication that has caused autism, low IQ, heart problems, and schizophrenia describes her difficult path:
“When I can’t pray, I can sing. It’s in times of grief, sorrow, or hurt, through tears. The lyrics seem to come when it’s hard to find my own words to pray. The songs become prayers. When the music takes over and becomes what I can’t verbally express, it always brings tears and relief. It gets the emotion out, bringing closeness to God because He brings those songs and lyrics to me. It becomes a conversation, His comfort through the lyrics. It’s like I’m right at His feet.
The songs are God’s healing gifts when her symptoms worsen, with hospitalizations, when grief over “what will never be” sets in. Grief easily comes after every conversation with her. God has to remind me to trust His sovereignty and His good purpose. It’s not songs of His comfort. My battle area is trusting Him amid my grief over this personal loss. It’s hard to stomach how this was part of His good design because it doesn’t make sense. So, after I cry out to Him with “why” and “what will happen?” the things He points me to in both is “trust Me.” That helps me emotionally cope with both anxiety over the future and grief over the past. It covers the past, present, and future. ‘It IS well with my soul.’”
Singing to God, His singing to us
What’s a song that…
- reminds you of God’s love for you, shown in what Jesus Christ has done for you?
- reminds you of our eternal soul-wellness, even as our suffering on earth continues?
- helps you to behold our Lord Jesus Christ as He is?
- enables you to be “sorrowful yet always rejoicing?”
Ask Him for a song! That’s your song to sing aloud to Him today, as you suffer.
This morning, He woke me up with a song (as He often does). Today’s was “How Firm a Foundation.” As I write this, our loving Father has carried me through a day of medical testing and helped me face the ongoing ups and downs of disabling chronic pain with my brain’s herniation, as I sing of His love for me!
A playlist of Scriptural songs to sing-pray God’s love for us in the gospel of Jesus Christ
Sister in Christ, I’ve made a playlist based on my professional work as a music therapist. All of it sings songs that help us praise and adore our Lord, but they also help us enter in with our honest emotions. The playlist could meet our natural emotions where they are, between the spectrum of sorrow and weariness or agitation and fear.
The common thread? God’s deep and abiding love for us in Christ, no matter how we feel emotionally as we suffer.
If this might bless you, a healing gift from Him, sign up here, and I will send it to your email with love as we walk alongside each other. Or perhaps other resources will help?
For Scripture devotionals, calming hymns, and encouragement from Lauri, click here for YouTube podcast
For a music therapy-inspired podcast of Scripture and hymns to help with chronic illness and pain symptoms, click here.
To read more of Lauri’s writing, you can use her devotional Bible study lament prayer journals: Praying God’s Promises Into Suffering, or Near to God: A Devotional Bible Study of God’s Character as We Suffer, or Singing the Gospel to Job: Finding Hope in Suffering. In the Valleys of God’s Love is written for children aged 3-8, a perfect read for grandparents, parents, and children to share together, preparing them for suffering to come.
