Sadness and it's spiritual clues

Thinking through this series called Signs(what our emotions say about our walk with God), I came to sadness. Naturally, we think of depression...the poster child of sadness.

But sadness can be less clinical, less chronic, more in the moment. It can be pervasive and persistent, but not true depression.

Sadness is not an emotion we like to hang onto. We typically do whatever we can to rid ourselves of this nasty little cloud that seems to hang over our lives from time to time.

Some people shop to lose it. Other people work to lose it. Some worship. others pray.

In it's essence, sadness says we've been disappointed. Perhaps its been a loss. Or maybe an unkind word hurled our way.

But what does it SAY about our experience with God?

For me...it is a clarion call to go to my Father, to crawl up on His lap, to rest in His arms, and tell Him where it hurts.

We SHOULD have this kind of opportunity with our friends or our spouses, but there's nothing like sharing it with our Father. It's a lot like when we were a child and we skinned our knee. We'd go crying to our mom or dad and they'd pick us up and maybe stick a band-aid on it. But it wasn't the band-aid that made it better...it was their loving attention.

Sadness calls us to that same experience....to run to our Father and climb up in His arms, and feel Him lavish us in loving attention. In those precious moments we tell Him about our sadness and walk through it with Him. He shares it with us. And walks with us til we feel it no more.

Bottom line...it doesn't matter where the sadness is coming from. The very best response is to find our Heavenly Father and draw close to Him...and to rest in His arms...to tell Him where it hurts...and experience His loving comfort.

Try it the next time you're sad. You'll be amazed.