I am a pretty emotional girl.

Just tonight, I cried pretty hard while watching Grey’s Anatomy online (my go-to show for processing/crying things out). Over the years, I have come to accept the fact that I have a lot of feelings and that I tend to feel them deeply. This means I can be a very empathetic person (at times), but it also means that I have to be wary of giving my emotions too much authority over me.

Some emotions simply need to be broken off.

When I was younger, I would get caught up in these downward spirals of emotion, whirlpools of negativity that would suck me down so fast I couldn’t breathe. It would start with a simple thought: Nobody cares about me. Or: I am a failure. But soon things would spin so far down into the darkness that I wouldn’t even be able to remember why I felt so hopeless––I would completely lose my bearings.

I recently realized that that doesn’t really happen to me anymore  I am just as emotional as I ever was––if anything, I cry more often than I used to. But even on the days when I sob so hard my stomach hurts, I don’t reach that point of despair.

It comes down to one simple foundational change: I am more established in the truth.

I know God loves me. I know He is preparing a glorious inheritance for me. I know He is with me always, no matter how I feel. I know He has beautiful plans for me on this earth. I know I am already victorious in Him. I know He is proud of me. I know He is fond of me. I know that no evil can touch me unless I let it.

There were nights in high school when I would sit up in bed long after everyone else was asleep, surrounded by fears and foes I couldn’t pinpoint, overwhelmed by sadness and frustration, and all I could do was turn to the Psalms and start reading them out loud, writing them down, underlining them, clinging to them. But now, all I have to do is call out Jesus’ name, and I immediately feel him with me.

While such blatant lies as “No one cares about me” or “I am a failure” can no longer touch me, subtler variations of them do at times. But whenever my thoughts turn dark or confusion begins to rise within me, I know now what to do. I stop and simply worship God for who He is. That is the place of clarity.