Anger

Anger is not one of my core emotions. On the Inside Out scale, I veer towards a purple hue, not a red one. But what I've noticed over the last few years is that my anger follows a pattern.

My anger most often comes out when I feel like I've been invalidated or done an injustice (yes, my anger is a bit of a drama queen), but it often has an underlying cause of feeling hurt or overwhelmed. Anger is always willing to protect what is fragile with indignation and aggression. Anger defends me when the expectations put on me feel like too much, so I don't have to deal with the feelings of not measuring up because my anger puts the blame on those who created the expectations.

So what do I do with my anger? I seek validation for it.

And how do I do that? I broadcast it. 

I don't want to let it go until I've expressed it, so I simmer or complain or try to talk myself back into all my "righteous" reasons for anger if it starts to fade.

I huff and puff around those who are safest to me, seeking their concern so that I can vent and then find validation. Or I try to go on the offensive with those on whom I can cast blame--again, only if our relationship is very safe--trying to make their guilt validate me even though I know I'll then feel guilty for making them feel guilty.

I'm aware that I'm acting in my sin nature, but maybe because anger is more infrequent, I see it as a sign of just how hard my life must be to push me into it, and I want others to recognize that and to lift me up as I share why I'm angry.

I seek sinners to affirm my sin or at the very least to sympathize with it as they talk me down.

And even as I look for someone to vent to, I'm aware that I would temper my act real quick if an acquaintance or friend I didn't now quite as intimately were around. I would be ashamed to willfully feed my anger in front of them because I know it's not a reflection of Christ, and I want to be a reflection of Christ. I know I'm doing evil and acting out and that my anger isn't justified by circumstance but only through the cross. But I don't want to vent my frustrations to God because I know they will only be death in the presence of Life, and I don't always have the desire to leave the grave I've buried myself in because I blame others for the reason I'm there.

Thankfully, God listens to what I'm feeling even when I avoid telling Him. He empathizes with where I am overwhelmed even if He has never responded in sinful anger, and He offers me a better way. 

Recently, He did this very tangibly by closing all of my doors. I had no one to vent to, and so I had to stop seeking the opportunity to do so. I still wasn't ready to release my anger or pray or process or ask for forgiveness, but I was moved enough to ask for prayer. And though that was imperfect in that it still meant ensuring others knew I was struggling before I could move on, it affected how I expressed that struggle. How I framed my words without bitterness or details but with an acknowledgement of my darkness and my lack of desire to leave it. I was still upset, but I was finally seeking prayer instead of affirmation.

And even before anyone responded, the request worked on my soul. I started to cool off, started to respond to other things, and within a couple minutes I opened up my journal and prayed. 

And this blog is a result of that prayer. The result of my anger, aviodance, pride, self-righteousness, self-justification, etc. in the hands of a good God who was pierced for my transgressions and crushed for my iniquities (Is. 53:5).

It's all on the cross, and that's what I want to be broadcasting.

I want to show my bad that His good may be known.

We are imperfect, but we are a testimony to the only One Who is perfect.