Anger and Fear. Two emotions that 18 months ago I would have told you I didn't have. I don't do anger, I was born without fear. I wasn't lying, I was just wrong.
When you spend a long time in a situation that is both hurting you and completely out of your control, anger and fear are your primary responses. Anger against the person hurting you and those you love, fear of being hurt again. But often in those situations they are not safe emotions to express towards the right person and fear and shame can stop you from expressing them to anyone else. So what happens to that fear and that anger? You can't afford to feel it, but it doesn't just disappear because you fail to express or acknowledge it.
For some people it starts coming out in other interactions, anger becomes mis-directed towards others in situations where you can be safely in control. Children 'act out' and demonstrate inappropriate aggression and sometimes violence. This is a more typical path for boys who tend to be less discouraged from outward expressions of anger than girls in our society. My path was the more typical one for girls. I mutilated my anger and my fear until they were unrecognisable to even me. I couldn't risk feeling them, I didn't want to feel them, so I twisted and distorted those emotions until I couldn't tell what they were any more. I don't do anger, I don't do fear. I just have a twisted mass of emotions that I can't categorise, can't identify and can't therefore deal with. Like many others in this situation, the mutilated mass of emotions I had was so confusing and painful that in order to deal with it I began to mutilate myself.
Thankfully for the most part the outward expression came under gospel control a decade ago. My body isn't mine, Jesus says he loves me and I shouldn't treat it that way and for the most part I don't. The scars remain and I am super-grateful for living in a culture that doesn't ask about them as I still find them difficult to talk about. Mainly because of shame at the evidence of my weakness and brokenness that's written unambiguously on my skin.
But the delusion that I don't have fear or anger persisted. In situations where I got hurt I continued to mutilate my emotions into an undefinable mess. Then one day 18 months ago someone showed me I was angry. "Are you angry?" she said. And I asked myself that question for the first time ever. "Yes," I said. "I'm angry." And I was. Suddenly it was there. The mess resolved, it untwisted and there was anger. Unbelievable anger. Disproportionate anger. Anger so intense I didn't quite know what to do with myself. But such a relief. I could see it, I could name it, it wasn't a hopeless, confused mess any more. "The truth will set you free." I was angry and I felt free.
That was a turning point, I still don't spot it sometimes, some of my closest friends have learned to ask the question, "Are you angry?" when they see me act in certain ways, but increasingly I see it for myself. Hard on the heels of angry came scared. Sometimes I get scared. Scared of being rejected, scared of being controlled, scared of myself. What a relief to know it, to say it, to be able to talk to my heavenly Father about it.
So it turns out I get angry and I get scared. In fact, I may be the angriest and scaredest person I know. I get outrageously angry at trivial inconsiderateness, terrified by minor rejections and feeling out of control. It turns out that knowing you are angry is only the first step. A lot of my anger is sinful, unjustified, out of proportion and I have had to try hard to learn not to let it loose on the people who caused it. Sometimes I joke with the person who helped me to recognise it that she has unleashed a monster. But it is better. So much better. Because mutilating anger doesn't take it away. It just re-directs its destructive power whilst leaving you powerless to change.
Knowing what the monster is gives you weapons to fight it. Gospel weapons. To my mutilated emotions I had nothing to say, to anger I can say look at Jesus who entrusted himself to God who judges justly in the hands of deep injustice and pain from sinful men. Be like him, they hurt you, but God can deal with it far better than you can. Let it go to him. He loves you and it matters to him. Look at the cross, see how much it matters to him. See how he deals with the damage you do to others. He pays for that too and he forgives you. See how he accepts you and won't ever reject you or let you down. Talk to him about your anger, he understands, he loves you and he cares deeply when people hurt you. You don't have to hold on to it anymore. You are free to love.
To fear I can say, “Let the beloved of the Lord rest secure in him, for he shields him all day long and the one the Lord loves rests between his shoulders.”
I still have loads to learn about how to deal with fear and anger. They can still get the better of me and I can unleash them accidentally on innocent bystanders. But at least I can see what I'm fighting now. And that is hope. Fear and anger can be appropriate responses to a broken and sinful world. Jesus had them and expressed them at times. One day in this life I have hope that with gospel grace and under gospel control they won't be enemies anymore, but appropriate and useful responses to help me to pray and love and long for heaven. And one day when the night of these dark times ends and the day of heaven breaks I know I will be able to put them down, I hope no longer as weapons against myself or others, but as useful tools that have done their service but are no longer needed in that place of rest and peace.
When you spend a long time in a situation that is both hurting you and completely out of your control, anger and fear are your primary responses. Anger against the person hurting you and those you love, fear of being hurt again. But often in those situations they are not safe emotions to express towards the right person and fear and shame can stop you from expressing them to anyone else. So what happens to that fear and that anger? You can't afford to feel it, but it doesn't just disappear because you fail to express or acknowledge it.
For some people it starts coming out in other interactions, anger becomes mis-directed towards others in situations where you can be safely in control. Children 'act out' and demonstrate inappropriate aggression and sometimes violence. This is a more typical path for boys who tend to be less discouraged from outward expressions of anger than girls in our society. My path was the more typical one for girls. I mutilated my anger and my fear until they were unrecognisable to even me. I couldn't risk feeling them, I didn't want to feel them, so I twisted and distorted those emotions until I couldn't tell what they were any more. I don't do anger, I don't do fear. I just have a twisted mass of emotions that I can't categorise, can't identify and can't therefore deal with. Like many others in this situation, the mutilated mass of emotions I had was so confusing and painful that in order to deal with it I began to mutilate myself.
Thankfully for the most part the outward expression came under gospel control a decade ago. My body isn't mine, Jesus says he loves me and I shouldn't treat it that way and for the most part I don't. The scars remain and I am super-grateful for living in a culture that doesn't ask about them as I still find them difficult to talk about. Mainly because of shame at the evidence of my weakness and brokenness that's written unambiguously on my skin.
But the delusion that I don't have fear or anger persisted. In situations where I got hurt I continued to mutilate my emotions into an undefinable mess. Then one day 18 months ago someone showed me I was angry. "Are you angry?" she said. And I asked myself that question for the first time ever. "Yes," I said. "I'm angry." And I was. Suddenly it was there. The mess resolved, it untwisted and there was anger. Unbelievable anger. Disproportionate anger. Anger so intense I didn't quite know what to do with myself. But such a relief. I could see it, I could name it, it wasn't a hopeless, confused mess any more. "The truth will set you free." I was angry and I felt free.
That was a turning point, I still don't spot it sometimes, some of my closest friends have learned to ask the question, "Are you angry?" when they see me act in certain ways, but increasingly I see it for myself. Hard on the heels of angry came scared. Sometimes I get scared. Scared of being rejected, scared of being controlled, scared of myself. What a relief to know it, to say it, to be able to talk to my heavenly Father about it.
So it turns out I get angry and I get scared. In fact, I may be the angriest and scaredest person I know. I get outrageously angry at trivial inconsiderateness, terrified by minor rejections and feeling out of control. It turns out that knowing you are angry is only the first step. A lot of my anger is sinful, unjustified, out of proportion and I have had to try hard to learn not to let it loose on the people who caused it. Sometimes I joke with the person who helped me to recognise it that she has unleashed a monster. But it is better. So much better. Because mutilating anger doesn't take it away. It just re-directs its destructive power whilst leaving you powerless to change.
Knowing what the monster is gives you weapons to fight it. Gospel weapons. To my mutilated emotions I had nothing to say, to anger I can say look at Jesus who entrusted himself to God who judges justly in the hands of deep injustice and pain from sinful men. Be like him, they hurt you, but God can deal with it far better than you can. Let it go to him. He loves you and it matters to him. Look at the cross, see how much it matters to him. See how he deals with the damage you do to others. He pays for that too and he forgives you. See how he accepts you and won't ever reject you or let you down. Talk to him about your anger, he understands, he loves you and he cares deeply when people hurt you. You don't have to hold on to it anymore. You are free to love.
To fear I can say, “Let the beloved of the Lord rest secure in him, for he shields him all day long and the one the Lord loves rests between his shoulders.”
I still have loads to learn about how to deal with fear and anger. They can still get the better of me and I can unleash them accidentally on innocent bystanders. But at least I can see what I'm fighting now. And that is hope. Fear and anger can be appropriate responses to a broken and sinful world. Jesus had them and expressed them at times. One day in this life I have hope that with gospel grace and under gospel control they won't be enemies anymore, but appropriate and useful responses to help me to pray and love and long for heaven. And one day when the night of these dark times ends and the day of heaven breaks I know I will be able to put them down, I hope no longer as weapons against myself or others, but as useful tools that have done their service but are no longer needed in that place of rest and peace.
