Over the past couple weeks y’all have seen tons of photos from my at-home wedding. It was beautiful, meaningful, and so amazing, but for some reason I really struggled with a sense of loss and sadness.
I hated that! Everyone talks about weddings days being the happiest day of your life and I didn’t understand how thinking about June 20th could invoke both a deep joy and also a bitter sadness. I would look at the pictures and watch our wedding video and be filled with an overwhelming sense of awe and joy at being married and having such an amazing family to pull together such a great day. But then I would be hit by a wave of sadness that it wasn’t the original wedding we had planned.
I kept thinking “What’s wrong with me? I should just be so happy that we are married that nothing else matters!” I kept bottling it up because it felt so wrong to have this feeling, but every once in a while I couldn’t bottle it up anyone and it would just pour out all over the place. I was sad, and I was sad that I was sad. And I so confused on how to work through this.
Over the last couple months I’ve been listening to the Gospel in Life podcast every time I walk. The particular episode I was on that day was titled “Praying Your Tears”. It focused on Psalm 39:12-13, 126:1-6; 2 Corinthians 4:17; and Psalm 16, Psalm 17. The whole podcast talks about the Psalms and how they give Christians an example of how we are supposed to handle our feelings.
There are typically two methods we hear about; either bottle them up/deny them, or vent them. But the Psalms don’t say to do either. One of the things Pastor Keller mentions is that bottling your feeling up can lead to you thinking that having them is wrong, which means that you’re sad, and you’re sad that you’re sad (exactly what I was experiencing) and that venting them can lead you to feel overwhelmed by them until they became your identity. But what the Psalms show us is a third way of dealing with our feelings. They don’t say to deny or vent, but instead, pray your feelings. Pray your deepest sadness, and tears because when you bring them before God you can process them in a healthy and healing way.
I know there are a lot of other brides out there who are going through this same situation. And while it’s fun to see all the way people are being innovative during this time, sometimes seeing all the cheerful pictures of COVID weddings makes it seem even more wrong to be anything other than cheerful. So if you are struggling with this feeling of sadness I would encourage you to listen to the podcast, (and dig into Psalms) it honestly helped me so much with this confusing situation. Please listen and let me know if you need prayer! We can all use a little extra Christian community in these times
