How to Give Your Suffering and Emotions to God
When I was a little girl, only my father’s emotions were welcomed in our home.
He had a whole arsenal of emotions, and he often used them as weapons against us. He was easily angered, quickly irritated, slow to listen, fast to speak, and emotionally unavailable. He craved power—to have the last word and to win every argument. If he didn’t, he would punish us with the silent treatment. Many conversations ended in name-calling, accusations, fear-mongering—you name it.
Naturally, this provoked many feelings in me that would surface—through crying. I felt powerless because I couldn’t share what I was truly feeling. Eventually, I learned to carefully store my emotions away—like something fragile but unwanted—placed in a velvet box, tied with a silk ribbon, and tucked into a closet down the hallway of my room.
Without realizing it, I befriended condemnation, made a room for her in my house, built a greenhouse for her in my backyard, and feasted on the fruits she offered: bitterness, hardened heart, separation from God, self-sufficiency. Somehow, I convinced myself that this was the “godly and honorable” way to live. I thought I was a “good Christian” for “handling” my feelings and not burdening God with them.
My view of God was deeply distorted because I was seeing Him through the lens of my father’s sin. I thought God was like my dad—distant and harsh—someone I couldn’t approach with honesty or expect to love me unconditionally.
But my story is not unique. So many of you grew up in similar family dynamics. Much of your suffering has gone unacknowledged, and you’ve been taught self-help: to push yourself forward with positive thinking or affirmations like, “I’m strong, I can move on,” without really processing your grief before God.
This is a common pattern when we have a skewed view or limited understanding of Jesus and the Father’s sufficient grace. So let’s talk about that.
Mark 14:33‑34 tells us that Jesus went to the Garden of Gethsemane, fully aware that He was about to be betrayed by Judas, arrested, beaten, and endure hours of suffering. Instead of escaping, He fell on His face and prayed:
“My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will.”
His anguish was so intense that Luke describes it:
“His sweat became like great drops of blood falling to the ground.” (Luke 22:44)
In this passage, Jesus’ humanity is fully on display, and He demonstrates complete submission to His Father in the midst of suffering.
We must imitate Christ in this way. As we face suffering—as sin comes at us, and it does, and it will—we must run to the Father, fall on our face, and plead with Him. Yet sadly, many of us have been conditioned to only go to God with the pretty, polished things. The rest? We just store it away. This is a form of condemnation.
Condemnation is a spiritual weapon that Satan uses to keep us from experiencing God. It keeps us stuck in guilt and shame, convincing us that self-sufficiency is freedom, that God is too busy or too distant, that we are too much, too dirty, too annoying, and that we must do everything on our own. But that is not God’s heart. The Bible says:
“The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.” (Psalm 34:18)
Friends, our God is near. He longs to comfort us, counsel us, bind up our wounds, and heal us. Do not fall into the schemes of Satan thinking that you do not need a sovereign God, or that you are not good enough to approach His throne of grace.
So I want to challenge you to approach Him.
Set aside some time this week. Grab a notebook and a pen, find a private space, and make a list of the emotions you’ve buried before they even had a chance to live in the presence of God. Surrender and confess them before Him in prayer. And if you’re at a loss for words, that’s okay—it will take time. For now, let me pray for you:
“Our Father, who is in Heaven, hallowed be Your name. Lord, I come before Your throne of grace, surrendering my pride and desire for self-sufficiency, and recognizing that I need You. I pray for my brothers and sisters reading this, who have been trying so hard, Lord, to hold it all together. But they cannot anymore; their hearts are weary, their feet feel so heavy as they walk through life not knowing what direction to go, or who to confide in with their feelings. Lord, Abba Father, come to their rescue. Bind up their wounds, and remind them that they are not orphans—they were bought with a high price, the blood of Jesus. In Jesus’ name, I pray, Amen.”
Let us keep approaching the throne that we have access to because of Jesus’ sufficient work on the cross. Love you, brothers and sisters.
