Emotional Baggage (Part One)

Emotional Baggage (Part One)                                       July 14, 2024

Emotional baggage is a term that generally refers to unresolved psychological problems such as stressors, trust issues, fears, paranoia, guilt, regret, despair, or grief that are usually detrimental to one’s overall mental well-being and relationships.  These unresolved issues are usually rooted in experiences from the past that we just cannot let go of.

Most people have some emotional baggage.  The question is whether it is just a backpack or a full-scale suitcase of considerable size.  Carrying a lot of emotional baggage is like carrying our physical luggage through a busy airport to a connecting flight that is leaving in fifteen minutes.  The bigger the burden the more difficult it is to carry and the more it impedes our goal of getting to the next location on time.  Emotional baggage weighs us down mentally instead of physically, and it may indeed have a more detrimental impact on our progress than any physical problem.

Emotional baggage is especially difficult to deal with because many times we do not know we have it.  We do not know, or will not admit, what we are carrying and thus cannot deal with it.  If we face a physical obstruction we see it, feel it, and know it is there.  But often emotional baggage is hidden from us personally.  Sometimes we are so sure we are not carrying emotional baggage that we get upset if even a close friend tells us we have a problem.  We have decided we are perfectly “normal,” totally uninhibited, as free as a bird.  Able to fly through the most violent storms blissfully unaware of what we are carrying.  Many things in life are difficult to impossible for us because we are carrying emotional baggage that is weighing us down.  And that is what Satan wants.  Satan loves anything that causes us to fail to achieve healthy goals for God.  Satan enjoys seeing people suffering and frustrated.  If it keeps our focus off God, that is what Satan wants.  Satan will contribute to our emotional baggage and mental blocks whenever and however he can.

So how do we deal with our emotional baggage?  A teenager at Strawberry Point Christian Camp prayed a line in a prayer I will never forget.  He said, “Lord, show me my problems that I cannot see and help me accept that I have them.”  No big words.  No fancy phrases.  Just a simple plea to the God who knows our emotional baggage to help him identify it.  Then it dawned on me.  Of the 60 plus kids at camp he was the one who least needed to pray that prayer.  His emotional balance was positive, healthy, upbeat.  He was approachable, well liked, energetic.  He laughed a lot, joked a bit.  He was ready to get into anything that was positive, interesting, or good for one.  But what stood out about him more than anything else was his constant quest to let God show him how to be better.

(Lord willing, we will continue this very find article by Les Cramp next week)