It's ok to be angry: Debunking the myth I believed about anger

    

I'll come back to the INFJ series I was working on as lately there's been other topics I've felt like writing about as I'm learning a lot about things I believed for most of my life that haven't been helpful to me. I would like to take time to share some of these things because I like writing about the things I'm learning about God and myself on here in hopes that maybe what I'm learning can be encouragement or helpful to you too. The researched topics no matter how interesting they are, don't always feel as authentic as when I write about what I'm learning in my personal life and so I'm going to take a break from the Myers Briggs posts and instead go back to my usual posts for a little bit. 

    I'm not sure if it was a statement anyone blatantly said to me or if it was just a message I received growing up given the environment I was in and how I was raised. I really don't know what caused it but I've spent much of my life viewing anger as a negative emotion rather than simply, an emotion. I don't think it's worth too much time digging into what started that belief for me at the moment but instead it's better for me to focus on "so what can I do to change my perspective and response to this emotion?" 

    I thought if I was angry about something then I was wrong. I thought I could be sad about things but not angry. I associated anger with violence. Whether that be violent words or violent actions so surely to be angry was to be "bad" or "wrong". Yelling was bad. Throwing was bad. Anger=bad. I didn't realize until later in life that anger is a healthy response to wrong doings, wrong actions, mistreatment and injustice. 

    Growing up in a Christian home and in church, I heard a lot about responding to mistreatment and wrongful things with sorrow. With weeping. With silence. With a "turn the other cheek" type of mentality. I didn't hear too much about responding with anger nor that anger was okay and healthy. This mentality has led me to handling my own anger in unhealthy ways like bottling it up so I’d feel it in my body, leaving me physically exhausted or snapping when the right recipe of things begin to pile up or reprimanding myself for feeling angry leading to shame or minimizing wrongs done. None of which is helpful. The physical exhaustion impacts my motivation for exercise, snapping when I let things pile up ends up hurting others and reprimanding myself for feeling angry at someone, not only leads to shame but also may lead me to having more grace toward someone than maybe I should have.

    If I rationalize that I don't have a right to be angry because all of us are humans and we are all flawed and make mistakes, I belittle the severity of the offense that was done to me when I shouldn't. I should see something as bad as it really was. I should forgive in my heart but recognize that there can be forgiveness but the offense was too big so there should no longer be access especially if the same offenses occur over and over again without any true remorse in any of the apologies that were given. But, if I'm dumbing down my anger, it keeps me trapped allowing the same things to happen again and again, all in the name of "everybody makes mistakes, we're all flawed and everybody's doing the best they can, an apology is an apology."

    However, God Himself is shown in the scriptures responding to certain situations not with weeping, silence or "turning the other cheek" but with anger. 

    This is shown in His response to when the people of Jerusalem broke their covenant to Him and worshiped idols. Leaving God to leave them to the hands of Babylonians as shown in (Lamentations 2:1-22, Deuteronomy 4:25, Psalm 78:58, Deuteronomy 9:8 and Amos 2:6-8). What is found in these verses is that His people didn't just turn their back on God and indulge in things God was against but made them happy, it led to darker things. It led to murder, people taking advantage of each other, cannibalism, people taking advantage of children. If you really dig into it and read there's some pretty messed up and heartbreaking things that people did. Sin can start out looking all shiny and comfy but eventually it can get pretty dark and lead to destruction. God's anger and wrath was a response to that destruction. 

    I think often we look at God as some type of "fun sucker" but in the Old Testament, it's evident that when the people in Jerusalem chose their idols and turned their back on God so God said, "alright, so be it" and let them feel the consequences of their decision it led to a lot of disturbing things. Dark things. Stealing, assault, abuse, poverty, incest, murder. Given this example, it's not un-Christlike to respond to offenses with anger. It's a healthy and normal response especially when there is injustice involved. There’s a difference however between righteous anger and unrighteous anger. Righteous anger is defined as being angry over an injustice and anger rooted in the desire for truth and the well being of others. Whereas, unrighteous anger stems from an uncontrolled emotional outburst or desire to destroy. I think we are all capable of both. We have moments where our anger is righteous anger and moments where in our human nature, it’s unrighteous anger. It's important that if we have unrighteous anger we bring it to God when it bubbles up, cause it will. 

    Now granted, there is a healthy way to express anger yet again we are human so there will be times we yell at someone. What matters is that we apologize for yelling if we yell at someone when we're angry. There is a line between yelling to be heard and yelling to do harm. Ideally, the best thing is to yell and throw when no one is around if needed. Throw a tennis ball across a field. Punch a pillow. Take a kick boxing class. Scream in your car. It’s important to not bottle things up but to let it out in a safe way/place. Admit the emotion is there. You’re angry. Your anger is a response to an action that occurred. It’s not wrong, it’s human. 

    A passage that someone encouraged me with recently that I’d like to close to leave you with is Psalm 94. It reminds me that at the end of the day, there will be consequences to wicked deeds. Whether that’s murder, abuse or assault. The really dark things. There will be hefty consequences for the people that engage in those things. 

    So today, whether you are wrestling with an offense or series of offenses that feel unforgivable, the injustices that you hear about on the news all over the world or an offense that was done to someone you care about, know that there will be justice. It won’t go unchecked. Your anger is valid but be mindful to handle it in ways that are healthy instead of destructive. That's easier said than done but the more you redirect yourself to handle it in better ways, share with God about the anger you feel and trust Him to handle the consequences of others' actions, the freer er your headspace will be. 

Until next time,

Amy