Emotions are tricky. They can be wonderful, allowing us to feel love and hope and excitement. But they can also be terrible, when we feel angry or depressed or hopeless. The biggest problem, though, is when we let our emotions control us. 
When my oldest daughter was in 6th grade, she would come home crying quite often. Usually it was because her feelings were hurt at school. So she’d sit on our bed and sob. For hours. It was excruciating.
I didn’t know how to deal with it because I always hid my emotions. If I felt the need to cry or be angry, I’d do it in isolation. When I was around others, I’d just act like everything was fine. I would stuff my feelings down until I couldn’t anymore, and then I’d explode. It wasn’t pretty.
Neither of those responses are healthy. Neither are biblical. Emma was allowing her emotions to overcome her. I was ignoring my emotions.
So let’s talk about the better way to handle our emotions.
Be honest. This was my problem. I wasn’t honest about my feelings. I acted like I was fine, but I wasn’t. And pretending you’re not sad or angry or hurt doesn’t make those feelings disappear. In fact, it can often make them seem even worse. If the only one you’re talking to about your struggles is yourself, you’re in trouble. Sharing our feelings is hard for some of us. I understand that. But it’s necessary. Galatians 6:2 tells us that, as Christians, we are to “bear one another’s burdens.” We often think of that as it relates to others, but it relates to us as well. We need to allow others to bear our burdens, to help us, to comfort us. We weren’t made to isolate ourselves.
Be self-controlled. This is what we worked on with Emma during her middle school years. She was allowing her emotions to control her. This is so easy to do, especially for females. When we’re happy, we view life as being great. When we’re sad, we view life as being awful. And when we’re angry, we lash out at everyone around us. All these emotions are normal. But they don’t need to control us. Galatians 5 teaches that one of the Fruits of the Spirit is self-control. If we are Christians, we have this fruit! But we often ignore it in favor of being emotion-controlled. We do not need to give our emotions power to control us. We need to give them to the Lord, confess our struggles, ask Him for help in working through them in a way that honors Him.
We are emotional beings. And that’s okay. Emotions aren’t bad. We don’t need to avoid them or to obey them — we need to acknowledge them. And we need to surrender them to Christ, who loves us and will give us the wisdom and strength to know how to handle the feelings that can sometimes overwhelm us.
