I Can't Fool God By Pamela Kline

For the longest time now, I have been hiding behind a mask of unreality towards other people and myself. I pretend to be this person who has it all together when really, deep inside, I’m an emotional wreck. I don’t like being vulnerable; getting embarrassed about looking bad in front of my friends. So I hide behind the thought that I have it all together, providing an illusion that makes me feel better in those situations.
I was struggling with writing about what I thought about myself and our group coming together. I honestly hated the fact that I had to write about this because I might have get put out in the open, thus becoming vulnerable. I just want to be accepted without looking bad.
On June 21st, Abba and Papa Nathanael talked to the Sojourners about being honest with each other and touched on the three parts that make a soul: the mind, the emotions, and the will. I thought it was quite interesting that they talked about this because I could think of people who could use this in their life and not my own. Fortunately, I can’t fool God. I had to face the fact sooner or later that I was just as bad in those parts as the people I was thinking about. One of my weaknesses is letting my emotions move me. I get emotional about so many things because that is just how I am. Not even a whole month passed until they talked about emotions straightforwardly to us- which I felt was almost directed towards me.
Emotions can be very powerful. God equipped us with them for survival and so that we can feel Him when He is near. I get to this place where I think these God-given traits are horrible because I have such a hard time with them. Abba said that it is good to be in reality about your emotions and whether they were controlling you or if you were controlling them. I’m thinking “this is gonna be interesting watching my brother go through this”. Boy was I wrong. I just didn’t see how much I struggled with it. We were given homework to come back next week with a story about how we controlled our emotions and mastered it. Now I knew I was in for it.

The rest of that week and the beginning of the next, I started to notice how many times I let my emotions control me. There was one instance where I was going on a diet and was only allowed to eat certain foods. My mom helped me set the boundaries of the things I could not eat and let me loose to explore. However, not only was my mom watching me closely but so were my brother and sisters. If I took one time during the week to splurge a little, they were always there to correct me. It made me mad that they took on the responsibility of telling me what I could and could not do on the diet. My sister Jubilee especially watched and told me everything. I got so mad at her and ended up yelling at her to stop being my parent. I got defensive and felt like she was being a bossy pest, but in the end, I realized she was just trying to help. We would get in so many arguments over this. Eventually, I would go back to her at the end of the day and tell her that despite the fact that she thought she was helping me, I felt like I was being monitored with my eating. I would also get mad at her not only because of her corrections to me but because she had bad eating habits as well. She was so concentrated on trying to help me that she was not seeing how much she needed help as well. Now, we have worked this out to where I can hear her without getting defensive and angry and she can do the same for me.

I still have these battles raging in my mind and my emotions I fight with daily. I still get scared that I am ruled by my emotions. I’m trying to find out who I am as a person and what my purpose is in the Sojourners. For now, I will wait for God to reveal this to me with the help of my friends.