I am a master at keeping hidden emotions especially when they are related to the violence endured in my younger years. Letting anger, fear, hurt out then didn’t seem safe. This has meant that they come out sideways from time to time.

Years of working on myself, years of learning that it’s okay to express anger, and years of processing what happened, has lessened the daily impact. Yet, there are still those days when I feel alone in it. There are still days when I react out of the past rather than the present. There are those days when it just plain sucks.

I just had a few of those days. Thankfully, I have the support of a therapist to help me work through the feelings, and a husband who patiently lets me share with him things I need to say out loud even though he doesn’t want to hear them. I remind myself I need to move through the hidden emotions, express them to stop reliving them. It works. It’s just slower than I would like.

After using working through what had bubbled to the surface, I was reminded of a critical piece in the journey through.

Be patient with each person, attentive to individual needs. And be careful that when you get on each other’s nerves you don’t snap at each other. Look for the best in each other, and always do your best to bring it out. ^16-18 Be cheerful no matter what; pray all the time; thank God no matter what happens. This is the way God wants you who belong to Christ Jesus to live. (1 Thessalonians 5:15-15 MSG).

I was reminded to give thanks in all things. This includes everything in my painful past. I spent a significant amount of time giving thanks to God for everything I could think of including what I endured. Many gifts have come from what I experienced and I need to remind myself of those things. I need to remind myself that God has been with me through it all. I need to remind myself that there is much to thank Him for.

Do you have hidden emotions? Do you ever let them out? Share your experience here and breathe life and bring hope to others.