Even though we may never have met, I know something about you. At times, you experience a  heaviness in your heart that makes it hard to get out of bed in the morning. Despite having friends you sometimes feel a loneliness that’s like an ache in your chest. There are times when you become so afraid that it feels like butterflies in your stomach. The heaviness, the aching and the butterflies are all symptoms of being overwhelmed. 

When you’re not coping it’s easy to turn inward, to shut down your emotions and go numb. Unfortunately, this isolates you even further and makes it harder to deal with your crises. Having gone through significant stress in my life, I’ve learned that sometimes you’re not meant to cope. The problem is that you expect to be in control of your life. None of us likes the feeling that our lives are out of our control. But occasionally reality catches up with us and our feeling of control explodes like a burst balloon.

Here is a golden opportunity to do something different. Don’t reconstruct the illusion of being in control. Instead, turn to the one who is in control. You are both a physical and spiritual being. You have an embodied soul. That soul was made by God so that you could be connected to Him. Spiritual disconnection is sometimes evidenced by the following emotions; fear, anger, guilt, shame, loneliness. Perhaps you’re not coping because you need to turn to God for help. If you would like to learn how to cope when you’re not coping then listen to message found at www.godsgap.net/howtocope. The Rev (Chris Perona).