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I was standing in church, in the midst of a large crowd of people, with my mother standing next to me. I could not sing, no I could barely talk to God. I looked around the old place. I watched the faces of the singers up on the stage. They were so happy, and the words of the song was celebrating the freedom that was given in Christ. As much as I disliked it, I was so angry. All I felt was anger, it seamed to fill my entire being. Although my logic was not wiped out, almost everything and everyone I looked at was distorted in my mind. Because of my anger, their very happiness annoyed me. The very things that always bothered me came running to my head, and I was having trouble to not just let them swim around in there. Suddenly I felt just as bitter as I once was at the crazy time of my preteen years.
I had a problem that I was dealing with with a very close friend of mine, and the situation took a hold of me. Inside I knew just how much I loved the people around me, and even the friend who I thought had hurt me so much, but at that moment I couldn't feel it. I know that I wouldn't snap, but I was afraid that I would somehow hurt the people I loved, even by letting them see the bitterly-angry expression on my face.
How many times have we taken it out on somebody, when we let anger get the best of us? I think that too much of the time we have not dealt with this emotion constructively, and we let ourselves just feel it instead of humanely, and simply dealing with it. It depends on the personality and the knowledge of the person on how to deal with it of course. Some people know how to be assertive like they know how to walk, their patience is stretched wide because they always let people know how they feel at first without ever letting it accumulate. Some people don't get all fired up and rage doesn't normally just flow out of them, but they always have to have the last word. They will argue with you until you pass out, ride until the wheels pop out. And then there's the ones who have given up. They have given you time in their own time to prove your loyalty to them over and over, and when they saw that you don't change, they just stopped caring. An abused child comes to mind. Either they violently strike at you with every wrong step you make towards them because of your bad reputation with them, or they will come into the corner of their own world, and close themselves from you for long, or even forever.
We are born with the emotion of anger, and no matter how much we try to fight with it, it always comes back to us like an unwanted enemy. Remember that anger was given to us for justice and not just for unfounded power. That brings me to unfounded anger. I hope that everyone knows that there is such thing as unfounded anger, when what we think is unjust actually comes from our own distorted perceptions about people without any real evidence. A person might have the best of motives but be doing something that just looks wrong from the outside. An example would be if you witnessed somebody yell at somebody who was near them "You're stupid!" The first thing that may come to your mind is that that person is unethical and rude, but you have no idea about the relationship of the two, for all you know that just might be the way that they show affection toward each other.
How many times have we hurt one another from perceived injustice without first gathering enough evidence that they were wrong? Suppose that you harshly yell at your spouse for quiting his or her job one day without first telling you (I know you probably would never do that, work with me) and you don't know just had happened that day at work. Their co workers may have given them a hard time, an they also find out from the beginning of the shift that there is nasty gossip flying around in the air about them, with his or her boss also yelling at him or her for working too slowly as he or she ponders at the gossip and the injustice of the co workers, then break time comes around and their good friend co worker just can't go on with the day without talking to them about his dreadful problems so that they couldn't call you to tell you what they really wish to do, while all this time they were really unhappy with their job all along but didn't want to tell you for fear of your disappointment.
Big story hu? Well come to think of it, we always have big stories to why we do certain things that sometimes hurt others when we actually trully love them and wish the best for them.
So where does all that anger come from anyway? Of course like I already mentioned it has always been there, but there are also many different factors as you might know that contribute to some body's level of overall anger. One of those factors is another very destructive feeling. It's a feeling that we all have to face sometimes, and the ones who have it often are totally controlled by it. I'm talking about fear, a disgusting feeling. Fear brings with itself bondage, the feeling of hopelessness in a harmful situation and even pain from the very anticipation of it. What does fear do to anger? Obviously that when a person feels threatened, he or she tries to defend himself or herself. If a person fears that he is threatened all the time and even has a history of having met those expectations, bitterness happens. I had a history of those fearful expectations being met and therefore used to be very bitter. Fear is so strongly correlated with anger, it's almost to be expected. We strike only when we feel threatened, or restricted of our rights and freedom somehow; why else would we go so far as to damage those very same ones who we love with cutting words, and sharp verbal beatings?
At the end of the day I was pondering about all the bitterness that was still left in me. I remembered all the harm that it had done in my life as I was growing up, all the anger that I had towards my mother and my sister, towards my neighbors and finally towards the whole world. I was so happy that I was free from where I used to be, that I was miles better off than where I was, but I was still just a little afraid of it, for it had caused me so much harm. I was afraid I couldn't fully trust myself.
I thanked the Lord for being there for me once again. He was always ready to cheer me up, to give me some kind of information that just lifted me up and reminded me of His ways. Even when I could barely receive it, He still managed to crack me. Even though I hated my own tears that day, He still made me cry when I remembered just how crazily He is in love with me. Then the anger went away. That night I made a decision. I won't ever go back to the way I was, and realizing just how much damage anger creates, I will be done with it for all time. I will be anti-anger, and it will be my greatest enemy. I know that I could never get rid of the feeling that creeps up with every time that I think somebody does something wrong, but what I can do is to never ever react on impulse, to think twice or three times before saying something that I don't really mean, to not dwell on the wrongdoing in my head, especially if it's something that I can't do anything about anyway, and to respond to it constructively and humanely, with edible explanations.
I also believe that we have control over all of our emotions if we tried since we were made in the image of God. I think that the heart of compassion and understanding is there somewhere in all of us, but it's something that we need to learn how to use.
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Posted by lover on 2008-05-10 23:25:40 | Rating: | Views: 70
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