Dealing with difficult emotions, God can Help

I was studying my Bible with Thomas Constable's  Notes (https://lumina.bible.org/bible/John+20) and came up with the following key insights into how the Lord help the negative emotions of grief, fear, and doubt. When you read John 20: 1 to 29, you find the people who benefited by seeing the resurrected Lord who all were engulf with certain human emotions. 

• Mary Magdalene we find her experiencing great grief. With her we see the emphasis of love and our Lord giving her a mission.

How often in our grief do we get a new direction in our life. When I was being treated for depression I received two things I wanted to explore and help others with. 

1. That there is hope today for recovering from depression. 
2. To listen to and encourage others who had stories of their lives to tell.

• We find the disciples locked in a room filled with fear, with them Jesus emphasizes hope and as a result they are filled with joy. 

Fear often makes us withdraw and has a way of limiting what we do. Rightly so the disciples were scared for life, but they didn't know how their shepherd already protected them. When they see the Lord whom had the marks that killed him resurrected He gives them hope that no matter what happens in their life, eternal life is real. There was more to Jesus's story then crucifixion, He was more than man, what he said was true in like he predicted their sadness was turned to joy. 

We are made to run or fight to face's struggles that we encounter. 

Our fears can cripple us, but we can face our worst-case scenarios knowing 

1. that our trials are temporary 
2. life is eternal.

• With Thomas he is overwhelmed with doubts. Jesus gives him a lesson in faith and as a result he becomes a man of faith.

We have come to some sense of reality in our experience. When we encounter things that are different then it that new reality we doubt. I may tell a man in the jungle about things he has never seen. He may doubt it but I have experienced it. I may tell him stories or show him pictures and maybe I even show him a movie. By the way what I'm showing him he may never have seen before. To him these are even more incredible. But if I were to take him back with us and buy a week pass to Disneyland where he can see it and experience it for himself he may say this is unbelievable but at the same time he now believes that. 

We may have the same problem with the realities of heaven. We have been living on this planet for 62 years, but eternity we may only have been given words, the testimony of others who experience it firsthand. We long for that first-hand experience with the spiritual. 

A parable illustrates A earthly truth to show a heavenly one. We understand what happened on earth but the spiritual part we hope to understand. Thomas sees the nail marks on Jesus's hands and feet that happen at the crucifixion when Jesus died. He is now talking to the resurrected Lord. What do you thought couldn't be real is now real and he believes. 

1. When my eyes were clouded over with cataracts and a disease lens was removed and replaced with a clear lens, my eyesight now could see things I never saw better. Just think how many people in the past with cataracts would be amazed at the procedure. Removed at the same time was my stigmatism. I can almost consider it a miracle. Ben Franklin who invented bifocals would be blown away with cataract surgery.
2. Today I walk by faith, but in heaven I will walk by sight. My body will be made for heaven. Life in a new sphere may have similarities with what I know today but there will be drastic differences. There're a lot of ways by reality here on earth changes and in the same way my reality will change in heaven. 

We all experience grief, fear and doubt. In what ways does the Lord love us to lift our grief and give us hope of new possibilities? How does God renew our hope to give us joy to overcome fear? How does God increase our reality to walk in faith to comprehend me eternal life? 

You may have other negative emotion besides what is shared here that you're dealing with, but the Lord can meet them in love, hope, and faith:Keep walking