“Anger doesn’t solve anything. It builds
nothing, but it can destroy everything.”
― Lawrence Douglas
Wilder
I once knew of a man who gave up his whole life in a flicker of
rage. He murdered somebody. In a fit of fury, he destroyed a life. He
devastated several lives. He certainly demolished his own life. Prison time,
however, was a time for recollection and recovery. He refused to be
characterised by what was, quite definitively, his worst moment. He was able to
do that in an encounter with the Spirit of the living Christ. He was a changed
man, though all his days would ever be tainted by that one moment of madness.
Yet such was the grace that this man had received, he knew he was no longer
judged. He no longer judged himself, and he had learned to turn his regret
outward into purposeful restitution.
He learned something else about anger.
Anger wasn’t all there was. Much deeper down something important
resided, as if there was an alluvial quality to his emotions that he had not
yet tapped. He discovered something in the peace of God. In the tranquil waters
of his own soul he was introduced to a pool of sadness ever present in his
material identity. There he found such empathy for himself, led there by the
Lord’s Presence, that he forgave himself those horrific behaviours. He saw the
fear generated sadness for what it was. It made sense, and acceptance was
enabled.
Anger was merely the masquerade for a deep-seated irreconcilable
sorrow that ran irrepressibly within and incessantly throbbed as an
undercurrent in his life.
The moment he agreed to take a pilgrimage to his sorrow was the
moment he was healed of the need of anger.
***
Anger needs safe expression, and that is through honesty
expressed as sadness or fear.
May God bless you in your anger, as it invites you deeper into
your sorrow, so you might journey with it, into a vast and deep emotional
healing.
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