where the anger is ...

Do you still feel hurt and cheated by how you were raised? Do you feel a little bit of anger for not getting what you so desperately needed and wanted from your parents? Does it pain you that you still long to have your parents approve of you though their touch? Do you shy away from having to visit with them? Do you feel hurt and let down when you do visit? Can you be honest that yes, there is still unresolved anger no matter how much you have tried to forget and move on?

Could it be that this bit of anger has held you back from the real love you wish to experience with a woman? Could it be possible that even though you love your children deeply there is still a part of you that could be there and love your children even more than you already do? Could it be that this unrest you have about your childhood and your parents could be the source of the underlying anger you have in your life? Could this be what your co-workers saw in you when they said you were an angry person?

I know you are not damaged from your divorce rather it felt like freedom. Can I switch it up a bit? Could it be that love is damaged in your eyes? Could this view of damaged love be the reason you see no hope of a good solid beautiful marriage in your future?

Could anger be the reason you feel unworthy of the fullness of God’s love that He has for you? Could it be the reason you don’t understand the Fatherly aspect of love? Could it be the reason you feel incapable of truly loving another with all of your being? Could it be that anger is the reason you pull yourself away from others? If you keep them at bay, you won’t feel angst or hurt?

I don’t see you as an angry person because you have shared your dreams, wishes, hopes, and laughter with me. To be fully naked you still carry the unrest you have shared with me from your childhood. I also see the greatness you can become. I see who you are as a fuller version of yourself. I see the calm and the assurance that is yours to possess. Anger is a secondary emotion. It comes from loss. What did you lose? You lost the approval and value that comes from a parent touching their young. Instead there is this hole of rejection. It feels like your parents recoiled from your mere presence. The only touch you receive was in a negative form. You deserve loving touch…

You are an angry person?
Yes, I am and I hope you don’t see it anymore. I was an angry person.

What caused your anger?
My anger came from the loneliness I have always felt from my childhood and into adulthood. It did not come from my parents. No, they are not perfect just like other parents and as you grow up, you see the strengths and weakness they had but the overriding gift they gave me was love. Where anger is love cannot be. Loneliness caused this ache inside to feel accepted and value among my peers. I longed for a childhood best friend like I read in my books (Little Women & Anne of Green Gables). I have a fiery passionate streak and I learned to hold it back so that I would not be laughed at. I had buck teeth and buck tooth beaver was a name they used to call me. It was like my own skin betrayed me. Even my shyness was looked at in a negative way and further isolated me. I struggle with my speech where my brain thinks faster than my tongue. I frustrate myself when what I truly mean is taken the wrong way. Anger comes to a boil even now when I am mistreated in the very way I would get into trouble if I acted out in that way.

Are you surprised that you are an angry person?
Yes, because I honest have no reason to be angry or at least that is how I felt and still feel. When I look back at the years where I was in a deflated state, I would never have guessed that loneliness was causing anger to eat away at my soul. I can honestly say I was actively working on myself. I felt like I was growing yet I did have this feeling of emptiness like there was something more and maybe I wasn’t as broken as everyone else claimed.

What was it that you had lost?
I lost the value others can provide you. I didn’t matter to anyone. What I did manage to get out of my mouth, wasn’t taken as intelligent. I am a major thinker and to have your thought process disregarded really stings. So what could I offer to others? The message was not much at all.

How did you release the anger?
Well, I didn’t make it happen rather God took away a job that was completely destroying my very heart and soul. I just didn’t know it at the time. I wanted to leave but you just don’t quit your bread and butter. I had to make the choice of looking into His Face or get caught up in the drowning seas.

I learned the process of actively turning my face into His. This was a physical process that I needed to go through so I could keep this lesson and never fall back. I wanted this Joy. It was a do or die situation. God is the only One who can make dead people live.

How did you get back what you lost?
In the deepest part of me I knew God valued me. I also had a deep sense that God created us to matter. He made man a helpmate because He did not want him to be alone. He placed us in family as His Ultimate plan. Jesus was made a baby to live and grow up in a family. Salvation is a rebirth into His Family. God is a Father and shows us Fatherly Love. Throughout Scripture (butterfly effect) we are told that we are our brother’s keeper. It began with Cain and Abel and on into the NT as loving our neighbors as well as our enemies.

Humans are so frail. They are going to disappoint me but God won’t. Sure He wants us to serve others with love, but He wants us to make sure that our love ultimately comes from Him. O Love that wilt not let me go! How amazing to find what I thought was taken from me.

If you aren’t an angry person, do you still get angry? If so how do you cope?
Oh yes, I still get angry. My words still fumble on my tongue. I still feel lonely, but God has been a Faithful Teacher and I am committed to not forgetting what I have learned. I still go through my Joy process (declaring His Attributes, declaring Victory, delighting & savoring) and I keep engaging my world. It soon passes because I am rich in God’s love. I matter enough for Him to die in my place so that I might live.

what is anger? what is depression