Author: monicainga

I am a wife of one and a mother of four.

Untangle Your Emotions

by monicainga

Untangle Your Emotions is a fantastic book. Jennie Allen tells her story, while she challenges readers to experience their own emotions. Ms Allen encourages sitting with emotions and actually feel them rather than stuffing, staying busy, or seeking to numb unpleasant and uncomfortable feelings.

In my particular case, I am not even reading Untangle Your Emotions, due to eye problems. Listening to it being read has proven to be pretty effective. I am a stuff-er/numb-er of at least four and a half decades. But, this week I felt unpleasant emotions multiple times.

I didn’t plan on actually experiencing unpleasant emotions when this week began. They snuck out on me. But, I actually experienced a couple of unpleasant emotions!

One of the unpleasant emotions was sadness. I finally cried over the death of my father-in-love. He passed away almost eight years ago. I don’t remember crying at the hospital when my family went to say goodbye and to see other family members and friends that we count as family. I don’t believe that I cried at the funeral either. All I concretely remember is that I wanted to be strong for the rest of the family. But, this week I ugly-cried huge tears for one of the finest men I have known.

It hurt. It still hurts. Tears are welling up as I type this. I am glad, though, that I have released this long pent-up emotion. No longer do I have to keep the pain under wraps and hidden. It’s actually a little free-ing to be able to express it. It also helps me feel a little more human and less like a robot.

I, or rather, I should say “we”, since my spouse is reading it to me, are only halfway through Untangle Your Emotions. The rest of the book promises to be very interesting. If this past week is anything to go by, I will also more than likely experience more emotions next week.

Dad, I am glad that I am finally able to mourn you, properly. I miss you a bunch. I am glad that you missed out on experiencing this Covid-19 era. It would have been awful not to be able to go to the hospital or not even hold a public Homegoing Service for you. I know that you are feeling better than ever in Heaven. For this, I am especially glad. Love you, Mon

Tough Day

by monicainga

Winston Churchill is often quoted as saying, “If you’re going through hell, keep moving.” When I tried to look up this quote for citation, I discovered that Winston Churchill didn’t actually say it. How about that? The memes were wrong!

Today was not hell, but I had a rough night, which resulted in a quiet day of mostly sleeping. The picture below is not an actual picture of me. However, it’s pretty close to how I looked for much of the day.

So, if Winston Churchill didn’t say the statement above, who did? No one really knows. A statement similar appeared in an issue of The Christian Science Sentinel dated October 30, 1943. It appeared in an article where neither of the speakers was identified. Person One asked Person Two, how he was doing. Person Two answered back, “I’m going through hell!” Person One then replied, “Well, keep on going! That’s no place to stop!”

I am not going through hell. It was difficult to fall back asleep and stay that way, after waking up at 4:00 AM, 5:00 AM, 6:30 AM, and 7:00 AM. Finally, Sleep and I reunited! But, not for very long. Today was a day of cat naps on the sofa.

Sleeping or trying to consumed just about all of my energy. That’s why there’s not much energy left for something creative or clever. All I can say is to keep chasing your dreams! I will be doing the same!

The Message, Part 2

by monicainga

Last week after I posted about The Message, my mother sent the following pictures about the author, Eugene Peterson:

Romans 8, continued

”Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life. Those who trust God’s action in them find that God’s Spirit is in them—living and breathing God! Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life. Focusing on the self is the opposite of focusing on God. Anyone completely absorbed in self ignores God, ends up thinking more about self than God. That person ignores who God is and what he is doing. And God isn’t pleased at being ignored. But if God himself has taken up residence in your life, you can hardly be thinking more of yourself than of him. Anyone, of course, who has not welcomed this invisible but clearly present God, the Spirit of Christ, won’t know what we’re talking about. But for you who welcome him, in whom he dwells—even though you still experience all the limitations of sin—you yourself experience life on God’s terms. It stands to reason, doesn’t it, that if the alive-and-present God who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, he’ll do the same thing in you that he did in Jesus, bringing you alive to himself? When God lives and breathes in you (and he does, as surely as he did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life. With his Spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ’s!“
‭‭Romans‬ ‭8‬:‭5‬-‭11‬ ‭MSG‬‬
https://bible.com/bible/97/rom.8.5-11.MSG

Untangle Your Emotions Launch Team: Post #3

by monicainga

This post is brief without a lot of details about Untangle Your Emotions, written by Jennie Allen. The reason for this is simple. The deeper into the book I get, the more I want everyone to read it.

Chapters Three and Four dive into what God, the Bible, and the church says about emotions. That’s all I am going to say as far as a synopsis of the two chapters. I am having difficulty restraining myself with my opinions, though. The only reason why I am not running on and on is due to my ongoing eye issues.

Put simply, I found chapters three and four of Untangle Your Emotions fascinating. Ms Allen’s assertions had me running for a Bible dictionary as well as Strong’s Concordance just so that I might gain a little more understanding into at least one of the Bible verses she references. Ms Allen discussed a passage that I have wondered about, but not enough to study it, even a small amount. Now, after hearing my spouse read it aloud (eye trouble, remember?), and Ms Allen’s discussion, both my spouse and I wished that the church leaders we’ve heard on the topic of emotions had Ms. Allen’s clarity and insight.

I am looking forward to the remainder of Untangle Your Emotions. Sometimes, I am a little frustrated with the speed of which I am getting through the book. If I were reading it on my own, I would be finished with it by now. This feeling of frustration is eclipsed by how grateful I am that my spouse is encouraging me in my reviews of Untangle Your Emotions by taking the time to read it aloud to me. I haven’t seen a word of print, and already my life has benefited by Jennie Allen’s latest book. I know that it will help many people.

Waterfalls

by monicainga

”O my God, my soul is in despair within me [the burden more than I can bear]; Therefore I will [fervently] remember You from the land of the Jordan And the peaks of [Mount] Hermon, from Mount Mizar. Deep calls to deep at the [thundering] sound of Your waterfalls; All Your breakers and Your waves have rolled over me. Yet the Lord will command His lovingkindness in the daytime, And in the night His song will be with me, A prayer to the God of my life.“
‭‭Psalms‬ ‭42‬:‭6‬-‭8‬ ‭AMP‬‬
https://bible.com/bible/1588/psa.42.6-8.AMP

These verses are a reminder to me that when life is overwhelming to me, there’s God. God, who created waterfalls, loves me and wants me to not fret or worry about anything. I wish that I would have remembered it before tossing, turning, and overthinking things last night.

Rest – How It’s Going

by monicainga

It’s a mixed blessing, having extremely limited vision. I am enjoying doing things at home that don’t require much reading or writing. But, I am also experiencing some stress and anxiety. I have begun to use my imagination and catastrophize about the worst possible outcome. Ten days have passed without my lenses. I have one month longer to wait until my next eye doctor appointment. In this time of waiting, I have started wondering about the waiting period for a guide dog. My thoughts are running something like this – “Maybe I had better go ahead and put my name on the waiting list. Who knows what will happen next?”

The upside is that I know Who knows. I have it on an excellent authority that He has a plan to prosper me. He is actively working things out for my good. I have also been told that He loves me and will see me through any storm.

But, I forget all of that sometimes. So, I just spent a few minutes writing it down. Hopefully, I will remember it tomorrow when the urge to check on seeing eye dogs hits me!

The Message

by monicainga

Around twenty-five years or so a Bible professor and church pastor named Eugene Peterson wrote a new version of the Bible using modern language, called The Message. It’s not a word for word translation, rather it’s described as a thought by thought translation.

I enjoy reading The Message to get a fresh look at a familiar passage. When I read things over and over in the Bible, they become too familiar. I will read the words, but because I have read them so many times before, I just skim across the words without letting them sink into my soul and heart.

Since it’s a late evening, I am cutting this entry short to share my favorite passage from The Message, Romans 8.

8 1-2 With the arrival of Jesus, the Messiah, that fateful dilemma is resolved. Those who enter into Christ’s being-here-for-us no longer have to live under a continuous, low-lying black cloud. A new power is in operation. The Spirit of life in Christ, like a strong wind, has magnificently cleared the air, freeing you from a fated lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death.

3-4 God went for the jugular when he sent his own Son. He didn’t deal with the problem as something remote and unimportant. In his Son, Jesus, he personally took on the human condition, entered the disordered mess of struggling humanity in order to set it right once and for all. The law code, weakened as it always was by fractured human nature, could never have done that.

The law always ended up being used as a Band-Aid on sin instead of a deep healing of it. And now what the law code asked for but we couldn’t deliver is accomplished as we, instead of redoubling our own efforts, simply embrace what the Spirit is doing in us.

There’s more, but I will save it for another time.

Untangle Your Emotions Launch Team Post #2

by monicainga

Progress has been made in reading Untangle Your Emotions. As I am still experiencing eye issues, my spouse is reading to me. Apparently, this is not a hardship, because I am told that the chapters are just the right size.

Chapter two was even more amazing than chapter one. I am not going into too much detail, because if anyone is interested in this book at all, I want them to read it for themselves. I needed to stop my spouse from reading at least twice so that I was able to digest what the author, Jennie Allen, was saying.

For a while, it felt like Ms Allen was telling my story. The personal stories that she used were eerily close to things that I have done, said, or thought regarding emotions. One that hit close to home is taking negative emotions and adjusting them until the emotions were positive. Apparently, pretending to be Pollyanna is not good for a person’s emotional well-being. My takeaway was that I just needed to feel my emotions, regardless if it was a happy or sad one.

Today was a good day to try this activity. I had a follow-up visit with my urologist to check on a couple of kidney stones that have been hanging out in my system for almost thirty years. I received the disappointing news that they were growing.

Today is also my youngest child’s birthday. For years, I referred to this child as Li’l E. I can’t say that any longer as “Li’l E.” is taller than I am and is quite the young adult. I am thrilled for the young person Li’l E. is becoming, while amazed how quickly twenty-three passes, and a bit sad, because I know that my nest will soon be empty.

To sum up, Untangle Your Emotions by Jennie Allen continues to be a great read. Emotions are meant to be felt as opposed to changed. Getting older is mandatory, but growing up is optional. Lastly, I really wish that I had bought the extended warranty on my body. It’s amazing how quickly it’s falling apart!