Oh, what a day! I am mad right now. I am mad over something that never even happened today. I have no reason to be mad right now. I have discovered recently that I do not handle anger well. I do not think I handle it in a godly way at all. Probably because I do not have much practice. Anger is one of the many emotions I have kept carefully suppressed. I began unsuppressing anger 10 years ago. Come to think of it, writing this down has revealed the explanation to my frustration.
See, until recently, I did not get mad at anything that happened in my life. I never got mad at the people for things that were happening now. I was mainly just mad about what had happened before. Most of my current anger was all suppressed and diverted elsewhere. So was a lot of my past anger.
Now I have started to get mad while something that makes me mad is actually happening. It is a very interesting thing to experience because I do not know how to handle it. I also have not learned a way to constructively process the anger. It is very unhealthy. Right now it just festers. I say things over and over in my head to people. People who are not here. People who cannot hear me. It is just plain toxic to my relationship with myself – let alone God and others.
It also is a very unpleasant way to spend an evening. I went for a walk and talked to God about it, but I still did not manage to let it go. Writing about it now is helping. The dumb part is I know the people I am mad at are entirely innocent. I am just mad anyway. Let it go, Laura, let it go! Definitely a conversation with my counselor next week.
Otherwise, my day was very pleasant, especially all the parts I spent in community. When I came home from church, I tried to work through the next chapter of Life’s Healing Choices. To be honest I had trouble with it. I am on Principle 3. In a way, I took step 3, this past week when I was in the office and realized I was not even trying and maybe I should try on some level. You know, I was consciously choosing to commit all my will to Christ’s care and control and love people.
But today it just seemed like a big commitment to say, “Yes, I am willing to commit to always trying instead of sometimes just letting my emotions rule when all the triggers are tripping.” I guess that is why Principle 3 is a daily step because I can commit to it for a minute, an hour or a day; but a week, month or the rest of my life is really overwhelming! God, I love these people, but I sure am afraid of them most days. Well, not them so much as relationship, intimacy, being known, commitment, love,…
God is welcome to having the rest of my life, but that will is a daily commitment. I have a friend who always says that the problem with a living sacrifice is it keeps trying to crawl off the altar. Well, this one is going to do her best to stay on and be burned up for sweet Jesus!
And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice–the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him. – Romans 12:1
Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness. – Romans 6:13
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