How do you describe your emotions nowadays in one word?

It’s the pandemic. Emotions all around and for some, it’s running high. If you’ll be honest with yourself, what one word can describe your emotional state nowadays? Go ahead, be honest. One word.

I was watching one my spiritual fathers, Craig Groeschel’s preaching today and he posed this question: If you have one word to describe your emotional state today, what will it be? I thought it’s a great question to ask my Facebook friends, so I did.

I got some really interesting answers. Some are saying “depressed”, and “longing” and “tired” and “hateful” — some politics right there. Some are saying “Thankful” and “Blessed”. Here’s an interesting one: “In love”. Ok, first of all, that’s two words. Second of all, if you’re single — what a time to be in love in the time lock down. Bad timing. But I know her, she’s married. Maybe she’s in love with her husband more. That’s cool.

For me, if I’m going to be honest, my one word would be “confused.” There’s a few facets of my life that I still need to figure out in the midst of this uncertain pandemic times — you know, my livelihood, the church community that I’m leading. And this whole new parenting under distance learning thing — if you’re a parent, you know it’s not cool.

So, yeah, I’m confused. O Baka naman nagkka middle life crisis lang ako — I don’t know :D

There’s a whole bunch of emotions that we need to process. In the middle of this pandemic where everything has been disrupted — our jobs, our dreams, our plans, our relationships, our life as a whole — it’s been disrupted. And uncertainties abound. So it’s natural to feel a whole range of emotions. If you feel some kind of depression, sadness, when you feel tired and lonely — that’s natural. And if you feel blessed and thankful and staying positive, that’s a wonderful thing, too.

But here’s our one point for today: Today, more than any time in your life, is the best time to do life together.

Let me try to explain this. We live in an very individualistic society. We thrive by doing things on our own, all alone, to the point that it feels like we really don’t need anybody in our life to function well. We might have friends out there, but even that has sunk lesser and lesser in number. In fact, according to recent survey I’ve read in the past, an average person nowadays has only 1 or 2 close friends, as compared to 5 a couple of decades ago. That says about how we function as a society nowadays.

This pandemic, the worldwide lockdown, has exposed several dysfunctional facets of our society — from politics to health care to education. One of the things that it exposed is our relationships.

We are a lonely generation.

You see, by nature we are social beings. And don’t tell me you’re an introvert. Even if you are, you still long for relationships. You long for human interaction — maybe in different ways than others. But because we are growing farther and father from one another, we are growing lonelier and lonelier as a generation.

We need other people in our lives to process what we feel, especially these days. Pag wala pa ka pang human interaction during these trying times, baka naman lalo ka pang mabaliw nyan. Of course, figuratively speaking.

So, maybe this is the best time to reconnect. I don’t know how it looks like for you — maybe it’s a Zoom call, a Facebook chat with old friends, with friends that you’re really not close with. Or maybe this the best time to acquire new friends online! In our church, we have what we call LifeGroups. I have a men’s LifeGroup. We see to it that we spend at least one and a half hours every Sunday to just talk and chat about life.

You need other people to process your emotions during this time of crisis. Go ahead and be vulnerable with your trusted friends. Listen to their stories. Tell them how you feel.

For some of you, this is the season where you probably long to reconnect with God if you’ve been disconnected with him for sometime. Or maybe you think that God is all about religion and rituals and you’r realizing that he is more than that. Or maybe you really haven’t connected with God all along. This is the best time to just come to him and be yourself. Tell him in one of your quiet moments how you feel — your struggles, your burdens, your needs.

One of Jesus’ friends, Peter, said this: Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. 1 Peter 5:7

God cares about how you feel. Go ahead and tell him about it. He listens. He cares. He is also your friend.