Anger Inside

Sometimes the chaos of life gets to me. You know how it it is: up early, work all day, come home and play with the kids, cook, clean-up, get them ready for bed, and put them to bed. I usually start my day around 5:30 AM, so it makes for a long day. That’s how the weekdays are and the weekends are similar. I’m not complaining. I love it. But sometimes something surfaces from inside.

I used to think being so busy and stressed just shortened my fuse, but that didn’t seem to make sense. The truth is, deep hidden anger surfaces every-once-in-a-while.

Anger is an uncomfortable subject, especially personal anger. I used to wonder where this anger came from? Besides the obvious (being a flawed individual) I think it is the impact of upbringing. Between my wife and I, our parents have also struggled with anger and have done things to cause anger in the lives of their kids. Both our parents divorced when we were young. Some have disowned us for a season. Others have a habit of saying cruel things regularly. All these contribute to the anger inside. I don’t point these things out to make excuses for my anger. Rather, I say them to share that many people may have a common experience with anger and don’t know why or how.

I think most of us struggle with anger. And as someone who wants to follower the teachings of Jesus, it is a dilemma. We may not realize it or recognize it as anger. And that’s because anger has a way of manifesting itself in different forms, often in ways that have no resemblance to anger. But the real problem with anger is that we pass it on. You see, the anger that my parents struggled with got passed on to me. I was forced to carry their anger in how they dealt with it, or didn’t deal with it. It is not just a personal issue. Anger leaks out all over those around us, especially our children.

And I have to ask myself, am I going to bruise everyone around me with my anger? Am I am I going to pass my anger on to my kids? That’s what I realized in the busy seasons of life. If I don’t deal with it my kids will carry the anger I carry, and this is unfair–and anger inside is ugly on the outside.

So I say be honest, be humble, and figure out how to face it–and even channel it in a new direction. That’s pretty much what I did with the frustrating areas of my faith in my book (10 Things I Hate About Christianity). I get flak for the potent title all the time, but we can’t ignore the emotion. It’s there.

We just have to figure how to recognize it, channel it in a new direction, and thereby diffuse it.

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