Anger

   “Look! The Lord’s anger bursts out like a storm, a whirlwind that swirls down on the heads of the wicked. The anger of the Lord will not diminish until it has finished all He has planned. In the days to come you will understand this all very clearly.” Jer 23:20

 

  “Here’s my heart, Lord.
   Here’s my heart, Lord.
   Here’s my heart, Lord,
   Speak what is true.”   Casting Crowns

 

  Today, the lady’s womb wasn’t big enough to contain the size of her burden. I wanted to illustrate the seething rage and fury that resides within my heart. God, in His faithfulness, provided an iceberg made out of fire. Most of the anger is hidden beneath the surface but it is there, stoking the flames of the visible.

  My last post left a bad taste in my mouth. Name calling serves no purpose. I felt disconnected from the love I know God has for all His creations, even the ones who do unspeakable harm to others. This is such a tough thing to wrap my head around.

  The Casting Crowns’ song was sung at church yesterday. I offered a heart full of rage to God. He began to speak with me about anger and peacemaking.

  Unless we are able to identify the areas of conflict, anger and disconnect, there can be no peace making.

  Peacemaking is not denying the feelings which keep us apart from God. It is offering them to Him.

 

  My sons were wrestling in the living room. This wasn’t an uncommon situation. Being five years apart, personality differences, sibling rivalry and probably stuff I had no inkling about had the two of them butting heads regularly. I would frequently, crossly, put a stop to it before things got out of hand.

  The youngest son put his foot through a glass pane on the antique pocket door dividing kitchen from the living room. The weak and bubble filled glass shattered. His foot was fine. No cuts.

  Something went out of me that day. I felt it leave as I looked at the broken glass on the floor.

  I stopped caring.

  I stopped being angry.

  I stopped trying to stop the conflict between them.

  The fiery iceberg sank beneath the surface.

  Most of it was already submerged anyways. I’d learned very well that any expressions of anger were completely unacceptable. At least for me they were. Double standards are the posts that hold a gaslight.

 

  Of all the emotions in my heart, I have the greatest difficulty expressing anger aka rage. There’s a deep fury fanning the flames of some very ugly ideas about how to punish someone for the pain they have caused. Not just to me, but to others as well.

  Maybe I am afraid anger will consume me like the tears I am afraid to let fall because I don’t know if they will ever stop. I am afraid the anger will spill over onto those who don’t deserve it. I can’t do to others what has been done to me.

  A lifetime of anger denied by self, minimized by others, mocked and shut down by the dictates of social structure (it’s so unladylike!) is rising up from the depths.

  I honestly don’t know how to handle this desire to lash out and destroy. It is utterly offensive to me, a person who had to crawl out from under the relentless and unabated rage of others.

  Now that’s an interesting thought.

  Bullies, chauvinists, sexists, bigots, sexual predators, liars and thieves are fueled by hate, the evil twin of rage. It might even be worth thinking about how much they must also hate themselves.

  The shocking statistic states 99.9% of the time someone who has been sexually abused goes on to abuse others in the same way. It’s beyond me to understand why they do this when they have firsthand experience of the pain such things cause. (My inner, angry voice says, “What is WRONG with these people?!!!!!)

  Is it because such things have been sickeningly normalized in their lives?

  My angry voice says, “Don’t care. It’s wrong. It’s sooooo wrong!” But I must admit this makes me pause in my tirade.

  What is normal for a pedophile? A sex trade worker? A pimp? A drug dealer? A con man? A thief?

  It has to be so different from anything I have ever known. In ways I can’t possible begin to imagine.

  Maybe God can channel anger into a cry of outrage. Maybe anger is needed to de-normalize this crap.

  Isn’t anger also a love language?

  Hate isn’t, but anger?

  Anger turned tables over.

  Anger destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.

  Anger defeated Pharaoh.

 

  Anger killed Jesus.

  God redeemed the last one, didn’t He?

  So we could be redeemed.

  We means everyone, even the ones caught in the ageless lies and snares of the devil.

  Maybe I am angriest about the evil that is thriving in our society. A satanic prayer recently opened the Alaska legislature where the Lord’s Prayer has been banned. (Yes. It did.) It's no wonder my lady is crying.

  Evil is getting bolder.

  Maybe I am angry because of the damage evil does.

  And maybe, this will enable me to warm my hands on the flames inside instead of trying to extinguish them—it’s more than okay to feel this way about evil that creates nothing but destruction, devastation and death.

  There are so many trapped by it, just like I used to be.

  May God use my anger as a righteous fire to light the path to peace.