The gift of feeling bad.

Maybe that ick you're feeling is actually a good thing.

I interrupt your week to tell you something you may not want to hear: that icky feeling you can’t shake could be a good thing.

I’m not talking about being sick. Please, if you’re laid up in bed take some medicine or see a doctor. I’m talking about that internal feeling that something is off. That something is wrong. That discomfort.

One of the most important things I learned through intense therapy over the last year is to be curious. When we feel something—especially something we don’t like—we need to explore it. Ask questions about it. Get to the root.

And guess what: We know to dig when we feel something we don’t like to feel. When we get annoyed, when we feel inadequate, when we lose it over something small. Those, friend, are indicators to grab the shovel, start digging, and see what’s below the surface.

I like how Paul David Tripp puts it in his devotional for September 16 from “New Morning Mercies”:

These moments of painful internal discomfort are not bad things; they’re very g…