I started a series not too long ago called Undiscovered Love. This series was to contain letters, poems, confessions, etc to my wife and/or family. My original plan was to post letters of happiness and joy and satisfaction here on YourBro, while stories and letters of forgiveness on my other site ForgiveMyLife.com. At some point along the way, I began to feel like ForgiveMyLife wasn’t really doing what I had envisioned it doing (spin-off of fmylife.com), but I still wanted to have a site full of emotion and feelings. And thus, Nerve came to being.

What is a nerve? Or a better question, what is the nervous system’s responsibility? To feel and respond. We all have nerves; our nerves keep us alive. Without our nerves, we would unknowingly destroy our bodies. In the same way, without emotions, we would unknowingly destroy our lives. If you think about it, the times you feel most alive are when your emotions are skyrocketing, good or bad (happy or sad). So why do we thicken our nerves? Why do we not trust our nerves, our emotions? They make you feel alive!

I’m re-reading “Feel” by Matthew Elliott, and man, this guy is hitting a lot of points that I wholly agree with. One thing he says that really hit me, is that one of the reasons we develop addictions, is because we no longer feel the things we should feel. We protect ourselves from pain and sorrow, or allow society’s rules to constrain our deep feelings of joy. What foolishness. God intends us to live fully, to live eternally. In our pursuit to control or restrain our passions and emotions, we are condeming ourselves to living embodiments of dullness. Wake up and live! Let your emotions feel, let them grow, let them burst, and respond to what you’re feeling! Show excitement, show joy, show pain, show anxiety! Live! Feel!

This is what Nerve is about: to express and discuss and reveal emotion. To encourage you and myself to feel, to live wildly and full of passion! The church is guilty of teaching us that emotions are evil and not trustworthy; what can we trust if not our emotions?! God is emotion, that is what indefinitely defines Him. God does not control His emotions, why should we? Draw close to God, and you will live a life full of emotion and wonder!

Let your nerves feel! Feel everything.

You can check out (and read more about) Nerve by going to nerve.yourbro.com.

The series Undiscovered Love and future posts of emotion will be on Nerve, while ForgiveMyLife.com will undergo renovation and become a depository of anonymous confessions and requests for forgiveness.