Tuesday was my last voice lesson before recording next week. I left the lessons much more confident than I went into them.

I went into them worried about one song in particular because the style is a bit of a vocal stretch for me. It moves me out of my vocal comfort zone. I’d sing the song, then my vocal coach would ask me how I thought I sounded. Several times I replied that I felt like I was at my breaking point. He would encourage me by telling me that he couldn’t hear what I felt, and no one else would either.

I’ve been thinking a lot about that comment. We are emotional beings created in God’s image. Our feelings can range from anguish to joy. We usually have no problem expressing our feelings of joy and delight. But we’re great at putting on bold and confident faces to hide our feelings of sadness and fear. We stuff and hide our feelings until we reach our breaking points. And so we go through life assuming that others don’t struggle like we do. Often we’re all left feeling a bit lonely because of our assumptions.

Just because we can’t see or hear what someone else is feeling doesn’t mean the feelings aren’t there.

When we crack the door to vulnerability, people recognize that and begin to crack theirs. I know…I receive emails and messages from people expressing their feelings because they’ve identified with something I’ve said here. Some I know personally; some I’ve never met. Either way, it shows me that we so badly want to connect with someone who can identify with our feelings.

For years I thought feelings and emotions were to be stuffed inside…to the point that I often couldn’t identify my own. I’m learning to identify them, and while I can often write about them, I still struggle to verbalize them. However, there’s One who knows every feeling and emotion I experience, and He wants me to come to Him with them. After all, He created me. He can handle my anguish, my sadness, my frustrations, my anger, my disappointments, as well as my joy, my excitement, my delight!

Today I feel a little overwhelmed with life, but am thankful that God is faithful to provide new mercies every morning. What are you feeling today?