When you are so mad......

 

I have been the hurt person hurting others, and I have been the safe person who has sheltered others. I have tried to nurture freedom in my children, I have believed that love ALWAYS wins, that all who are broken and shattered among us need care, grace, mercy, and love to heal... not reprimands and punishments. I have believed completely in shining our light, because where there is light, darkness cannot exist. 

Until this past year. I have been so hurt, so afraid,  and so angry. So very angry....an unearthly fury that I had never experienced. I was lost in it, being tossed and thrown all throughout the waves of this fierce emotion. Completely unable to get my bearings and just left to seethe throughout my days. I could not find my way to forgiveness if my life had depended on it...and really, it did feel like my life depended on it. I was miserable. Heavy, weighed down, burdened, brow furrowed, crying daily, snippy, short, easily offended....ugly. I was filled with poison and had become ugly inside and it seeped out of my pores on any given day, spreading my poison to anyone who would listen. 

I couldn't believe it! I have lived my life believing that we need to "love others the way that Jesus loves," and THAT will be what heals us all.....the giver and the recipient. Love wins, right??!! Compassion, mercy, grace...not based on performance, but as a free gift just because we are human beings in need of redemption and healing and being loved, but this was out of my control. 

I used all of my tools and tricks. I prayed, I talked ad-nauseam to my inner circle who patiently listened, I read everything I could get my hands on. I tried to let go, tried to surrender, tried to envision compassion upon and where these offenses had originated from....a place of pain and open wounds inside my offender. I confessed my nastiness, I tried, and tried, and tried, and tried, to change my hearts condition, I was willing....but I was also, by all appearances powerless to remove this from my soul and I felt like I was drowning into this fury that was choking me and filling me up until I was immersed and could no longer breathe. 

Just as I would feel like maybe I was finding my way out of this darkest of places, something new would happen and this fire would once again be rekindled into a raging inferno. It would eventually die back down and we would repeat this cycle over and over again. 

I began to accept that I just needed to let this all run its course. I needed to be mad. Be sad. Feel the betrayal, the anger, feel all of it and just let it sit for awhile. Get comfortable looking it all in the eye, acknowledging it for what it was, and stop trying to make it go away. Let Jesus sit with me in it....and stop trying to polish it up and make it look better than it was. 

Then, I began a Bible study with my friend. The name of our study was "Loving the Loveless." It was about Jonah which is a book about second chances and God's unending compassion. We all know the story....Jonah runs from God because he doesn't want to do what is being asked of him, gets caught in a storm as he flees, gets swallowed by a whale which in all actuality saved his life from drowning. Once he is spit out onto the shore, he receives his second chance....he is asked again to head to Ninevah and preach against their violent and oppressive actions. He goes, shares his spiel, and the Ninevahites embrace the message and change their ways. They receive God's mercy and compassion and Jonah shockingly....becomes so angry. He wants them to pay for their wrongdoing, he wants them to get what he thinks they deserve. To be held accountable. He is so angry he wishes he could just die! God explains that He desires that no one perish and of course He will provide a way for healing if the people will receive His direction and lay down their own best thinking and embrace what He is offering to them. He loves the ones who are hard to love. 

Ugh....do you see where this is going? In all honesty I have had to think of the times I have been the person in need of mercy and compassion. When I was the one who was hard to love, I was prickly, and fearful and pushed people away when in reality, I needed them more than they needed me. I have had to acknowledge that I have been keeping a tally sheet, noting every wrong done and storing it up for later, least I forget any brutal detail. I was holding someone accountable for their wrong doing, but providing no way out for them. Wanting them to see how wrong they were, to acknowledge it, own it, roll around in it, wanting them to pay for the harm they caused. There was no grace, no compassion, no mercy.....just anger. Just hurt. So much hurt. Like Jonah, I can only believe that I have been swallowed up by something so much bigger than me and if I can just be still, I will find my way back to myself. 

According to our study, the word "compassion" comes from a Latin root of two words....con = "with" and passion from the verb pateo = "suffer." The two words together mean literally "to suffer alongside with someone." There is compassion for me and my hurting heart, and there is compassion for my offender.

It's none of my business if they change their ways. I'm not in charge of that part. I can only sit in this for now and allow whatever is being worked in my spirit to carry on. Its deeply uncomfortable on many levels. I can set boundaries, live my life, serve others, and eventually begin to shrug these heavy layers of rage and fear off of my shoulders once the way is shown to me. Because right now I am powerless to change my insides. Something about Jonah struggling with exactly what I have been carrying has felt so good. Misery loves company....even when its a Biblical character from more than 2000 years ago. 

Peace and grace to each of us as we navigate through the complexities of this life. 

Annette