Reactions To Life

“Come to me, all of you who are tired and have heavy loads, and I will give you rest. Accept my teachings and learn from me, because I am gentle and humble in spirit, and you will find rest for your lives.” Matthew 11:28-29

Recently I had an allergic reaction to a medication that I tried. It caused a rash and many other physical symptoms. It was suggested to give relief to my congestion, but it caused a very unpleasant experience. I learned how my body reacts to something foreign to it. It has made me more sensitive and cautious about what I put into my body even when it is helpful to others. My body had an adverse physiological response, that is, I had a negative response to a substance.

In life, what causes negative responses that affect us physically? I have a client that is dealing with canker sores in her mouth caused by her absorbing all the emotions around her. Her body is reacting negatively to internalizing these emotions. She is trying to process through them and make healthier decisions for herself. She knows she needs to let go of fixing others and trying to control their behaviors. She is allergic to the absorption of emotions.

How are you responding to the negativity, chaos, and unwanted events in your life that trigger a boatload of emotions? Do you absorb the feelings of others and try to fix everybody and the situation through control? Do you run away and escape life? Does it feel like you are allergic to everything and breaking out all over? You may be having an allergic reaction to life.

I have learned some important truths through my experience this week. First, just because something is healthy for someone else does not make it healthy for me. This relates to life situations, too. How one person deals with a situation may work for them, but it may not work for you. Each person was created unique not just in looks and behaviors but also in emotions and how we react to situations. When we compare ourselves to others and wonder why we cannot do what they just did, it is because we are not them.

Next, I learned that negativity is like something foreign to the body. It does not fit well, or process well nor even settle well into our systems. Negativity permeates into every fiber of our being and makes life feel overwhelming and miserable. We begin to pile everything together and see all of life as bad when it really is not. It is separating the emotions and dealing with each situation by itself. Just because I had an allergic reaction, it did not change my relationships, my faith, my work, and my purpose in life. It just temporarily changed how I was feeling.

I learned that rest is essential for my body to heal from reactions and illness. Pushing through is helpful to a point, but rest is needed to heal completely. Jesus calls us to come to him when we are tired and have heavy loads. Jesus will give us rest. Yes, we need physical rest, but we also need spiritual and emotional rest. That is, we need to rest in the presence of Jesus and allow Jesus to renew us from within. We tend to deplete our spiritual reservoir because we rely only on what we put into it. God’s grace never runs dry, we just think we have to earn the grace that we use. That is a false statement. Grace and love and forgiveness are freely given.

Sometimes, we think we need to get our act together first before God will love us and accept us as His child. We try to do all the right things, fix our guilt by staying busy and overcome our failures by volunteering more. Then we are exhausted even more. We think we should be through the grief, over the pain, healed from the trauma, and work harder to overcome the guilt and shame. We beat ourselves up. Stop reacting the way the world says to react to life.

Maybe, it is time to listen to Jesus’s words again,” Come to me, all of you who are tired and have heavy loads, and I will give you rest.” Trust Jesus. The rest is more than physical rest. It is rest from trying to prove to God that you can earn His love and grace. It is rest from feeling you should be better and farther along on the journey. It is time to rest in God’s loving arms and just be God’s child who is loved not for what you do, but for whose you are – God’s child.

Rest in the freedom that God has you. You are not alone in this struggle of life. Stop reacting to everything as if it is your responsibility. Sometimes things just happen, and we have to let it work itself out just like my reaction to medication. My body had to release it. I had to rest my body. Focus more on releasing instead of reacting. Rest in God’s presence and let God work it out.

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