October 5, 2026, the chains of emotional pain are some of the heaviest chains that we will have to break free from in our journey of sanctification. Emotional pain is not something to be dismissed as a minor issue in the grand spiritual scheme of things. The emotions are extremely powerful. They have the ability, if left to their own, wayward devices, to completely destroy our lives.
Christ does not want us to be imprisoned in pain. It is not Christ’s will that we remain bound by abusive, toxic, soulish, trauma bonded, enmeshed, codependent, emotionally fraught, dysfunctional relationships and situations, that cause us intense psychological distress and immeasurable suffering.
That is why He is teaching us how to rise up from under the oppressive authority of our negative emotions (and the thoughts that accompany them) and relate (to people, circumstances and ourselves) in a healthy and holy way.
Although there are exceptional situations in which abuse can take place within the context of the Kingdom for specific and specialized purposes relating to the controlled destruction of certain areas of the old man, these are personally overseen by Christ Himself, who gives those within them a special grace that protects and sustains them, making the scenarios spiritually safe.
Generally, however, Christ wants us to walk in freedom: If the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed (John 8.36). The process of getting free from the emotions is, however, very complex, because the emotions are an intrinsic part of our humanity. They are not, as a result, something of which we can (or should), simply, “get rid.”
God created emotions. The emotions are, therefore, good, because everything that God created is very good (Genesis 3.1). The emotions are the means through which we experience the full range of God’s blessing. One of the most prominent consequences of the Fall, however, was that the emotions degenerated into the disordered state in which we now find them.
In Eden our emotions supported our spirits and our relationship with God and Creation. As a result of the rebellion, however, this blessed situation reversed so that our emotions, instead of feeding and supporting our spiritual life, began to war against our—weakened and shriveled—spirits and colonize our inner beings, so that our spirits became enclosed in our (now disordered) emotions and shut down by our many thoughts.
It is not possible for us to avoid pain altogether—this is the path of the Cross. The pain of the Cross (the pain of spiritual sacrifice) that engenders the suffering about which we hear the saints so eloquently speak, however, is different in quality to the spiritually paralyzing pain that colored so much of our past and that still, depending on how God made us and on where we are in our journey of sanctification, has the ability, either occasionally or perhaps frequently, to derail our present.
This type of psychologically torturous pain comes from someone other than Christ… Christ will never torment us because Christ is love (1 John 4.8). He does not want us to suffer beyond the absolute bare minimum needed for us to deal with whatever problem is in front of us, so as to be able to move past it into greater freedom: The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul (Psalm 23.1–3a).
This is why it is important that we learn how to distinguish between the holy pain of spiritual sacrifice and the torturous pain that imprisons us in the flesh and in the past. Despite what we may think, our loving God deeply cares about the way that we feel, and He wants to make sure that the process of emotional liberation through which He is leading us, is as smooth and pain free as possible.
Christ is our Shepherd. He loves us and is invested in every single area of our lives, including the states of being that make up our day to day experiences, and all that we go through, as a result of our willingness to die to this world for His sake, and the sake of His Kingdom: We do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin (Hebrews 4.15).
Lord, despite how lonely and pain-filled the path of the Cross might feel at times, we trust and understand that when we suffer, You suffer with us. Thank you for making a pathway out of the prisons of emotional pain into which we unwittingly enter, day after day, and for being the Shepherd who restores our souls. We need this restoration and we ask for it today.
Amen +
Source: Apocalypse: Sister Anastasia, Substack