take every thought captive

"Emotions are a wonderful gift from God. And our relationship with God should bring to our lives strong godly affections. However, our emotions shouldn't be vested with final authority. This should be reserved for God's Word alone." C.J. Mahaney

This pregnancy has been a lot harder on me than my last, both physically and emotionally. I've only had the one serious meltdown so far, but I've been having a lot more mood swings aside from that. I'll be totally fine and then just find myself in an unexplainable "funk". I'm a huge believer in acknowledging but not giving authority to feelings and emotions by speaking truth to myself. I don't like to blame everything on being pregnant, but I'm also confident that pregnancy hormones do not always follow logic or reason. 

I've been rereading sections of Feminine Appeal and The Cross Centered Life by Carolyn and C.J. Mahaney (read them if you haven't) and was challenged and encouraged by the chapters dealing with feelings. The following thought from Carolyn Mahaney was particularly challenging to me, "Although our feelings are not always trustworthy, we are not to ignore them. We shouldn't think: It doesn't matter how I feel. It does matter! Our emotions are not morally neutral. Feelings register what is transpiring in our hearts. We may be inclined to believe that our feelings are caused by life's circumstances or by our body chemistry. Undoubtedly, these things do affect us. However, such factors are not the source of our sinful feelings. As we encounter life, our emotions are primarily determined by what is in our hearts. Sinful feelings reveal a sinful heart." I've been processing a lot through what this means and I'm VERY thankful for the people in my life like my fantastic husband and wise women like my friend, Jill, who have helped me sort through the mess . I DO believe that pregnancy hormones are the culprit behind a lot of my feelings, but I also believe that they aren't single-handedly to blame. Instead it seems more likely that my hormones have created an environment that makes me more vulnerable to latent sin and also prevents me from dealing rationally with evil attacks. 

2 Corinthians 10:5 commands us to "take every thought captive to obey Christ." To me, that means that I can't write off any thought and chalk it up to growing a human being. Now, I've been doing the hard work of figuring out where there is sin to be dealt with head-on and where I can rest in the fact that my body is out of control and things won't always make sense.........kind of like this post ;) Hopefully you're not worse off than when you came. I would LOVE to hear thoughts on this and could really use your wisdom, insight, encouragement and prayers as I attempt to navigate these waters. Feel free to ask me how I'm doing, in fact, please do. I probably won't bring it up with you because my feelings are often so fleeting and when I'm on the upswing it seems silly to talk about, but I need more people in my life who will ask me hard questions and speak truth to me.