Reactions

Living on the edge of one’s emotions can be dangerous.  Bad things happen!  Pain hits hard.  Uncertainty jerks and tugs in places you least expect.  At the edge emotions drive one’s response.  It is almost as if you can’t help yourself.  You can see others express road rage.  You find traces where stress, exhaustion, and frustration call home.  And, when honesty is visiting, you see it in your soul.  It is as if a single event, often minor, triggers an avalanche of feelings which in turn let previously unimaginable actions roll.
 
The results can be really ugly.  People are hurt, some die when otherwise calm, peaceful, and gentle individuals loose control.  Hope can be trampled, opportunity extinguished, and faith shredded into little pieces. 
 
I find the challenge of living life to the full comes with a warning.  When your emotions are stretch, fully engaged, good and evil compete in a way seldom seen or experienced in normal life.  They both want a say in your life and mine.  They will and often are working hard to influence every moment of the present.  We may deny the fact, but one always wins.
 
Second, it is good to “know” what we are really thinking.  I know this sounds a bit crazy, but we often “think” one thing inside and while denying its very existence as we make decisions.  It is good to “express”, especially privately which means talking out loud, what is going on.  For example; “Well now, let me tell you what I'll do to my vineyard:  I'll tear down its fence and let it go to ruin.  I'll knock down the gate and let it be trampled.  I'll turn it into a patch of weeds, untended, uncared for—thistles and thorns will take over.  I'll give orders to the clouds: ‘don't rain on that vineyard, ever!’” (Isaiah 5.5, 6) 
 
Third, with the knowledge of our heart, we now hold the freedom to choose what happens next.  Will compassion, mercy, and hope drive our action in this moment or something else?  Our story expressed in a moment.