I've come to see that unhealed fear and anger live with me all the time. They're crying out for healing but real healing often comes with more pain, like lancing an inflamed infection. When I bury the real reasons for my amassed collection of unhealed fears and anger, I continue avoiding them rather than present them to the Healer for the necessary lancing. On some subconscious level I, and others like me, may even hope that occasional (or frequent) expressions, outbursts, and ventings will asuage the monster and soothe the infection. But they don't. We need healing. Full healing. Not just outlets to express and vent the pent up fear residing in us. Not just excuses to unleash the monster of our unhealed anger or fear. We need the monster to go away altogether. We need it to be shrunk, in the face of the healing power and majesty of our Almighty Savior. Shrunk, slain, and booted out.
We need to – somehow – present the whole pacing monster of our unhealed fear and anger to God and allow His skillful examination to tame it, shrink it, and remove it. To heal it.
Seeing my fear and anger in this way – as not merely reactions to which I'm mysteriously prone, but rather almost as objects resident in me – I've come to more clearly see how they mis-express themselves in my life. My choices in the face of experiences long ago gave birth to a monster I have not understood. Seeing my fear as a pent-up accumulated mass of unhealed influence, which paces around waiting for an excuse to vent itself, helps me understand why I fall prey to it so often. Understanding this dimishes my sense of being fear's victim and reveals in a greater way my power to take it to God for Him to deal with. Not just the fear of the moment, but the whole ugly monster that's taken up residence inside me.
Monday, November 28, 2011
Monday, November 21, 2011
A New Light On Anger
In looking at this whole concept of fear's residence inside me, I've had to face the fact that there's some anger in me, too. It's probably related to the fear; fear and anger often go hand in hand. For instance, I've observed for some time a crazy reaction of mine. If I accidentally do something that causes a sudden burst of pain, like pinching a finger in a drawer, I erupt in a burst of anger. I hate it, but it's true. I've looked at this trait of mine with sadness and embarrassment but also with puzzlement. “What is this really about?”
Another natural tendency I have to fight is the ease with which I can harden my heart when it's hurt. It's tempting to be unforgiving. Clearly this is a by-product of the fear in me. It can play itself out like a script. Someone hurts me. I feel unsafe. I feel afraid. I close my heart down. I keep it closed in self-protection.
In seeing fear's and anger's ability to set up camp inside of us, I've had to look at these personal matters under this new light. I realize it's the unhealed fear and unhealed anger in me that cause all the problems. They're the intangible monsters pacing the hallways of my life seeking a means of release. They wait for an opportunity to latch onto and ride, giving vent to themselves and justifying their existence and expression. See? See? I have good reason to be afraid/angry/unforgiving!
Anger. Fear. Hardness. Unforgiveness. They exist in those of us who seem to be doing lifelong battle with them. They want full expression, full release. Take my finger-caught-in-the-drawer scenario. I'm going about my business, fixing dinner, when wham! - I don't get my finger out of the way fast enough. Instant anger. Huge anger. Out of proportion anger. The pain of the injury plus the fear caused by its suddenness strike the bullseye of the anger and fear resident in me all the time. And right on cue, I blow a gasket. First I get angry. Then I cry.
When fear and anger go unhealed – when the pain of incidents that evoked fear and anger in us go unhealed - they pace about for release. A very godly woman once told me that when we bury our emotions, we always bury them alive. Long ago and far away when the first frightening and unjust hurts occurred in my life, I didn't know what to do with the pain. I stuffed it away and buried it out of sight. Year after year of responding to pain this way did not kill the monsters of fear and anger in me. I just ignored them. All the emotions I bury will remain alive until they are healed. They will pace about like a monster in the corridors of my days and experiences. They will seek any door of opportunity that cracks itself open and they will burst into the situation in an attempt to vent some of the festering pain from which they originated. They oppress, they spew, they vent. They want to be heard and justified and validated.
But what they really want is healing.
Another natural tendency I have to fight is the ease with which I can harden my heart when it's hurt. It's tempting to be unforgiving. Clearly this is a by-product of the fear in me. It can play itself out like a script. Someone hurts me. I feel unsafe. I feel afraid. I close my heart down. I keep it closed in self-protection.
In seeing fear's and anger's ability to set up camp inside of us, I've had to look at these personal matters under this new light. I realize it's the unhealed fear and unhealed anger in me that cause all the problems. They're the intangible monsters pacing the hallways of my life seeking a means of release. They wait for an opportunity to latch onto and ride, giving vent to themselves and justifying their existence and expression. See? See? I have good reason to be afraid/angry/unforgiving!
Anger. Fear. Hardness. Unforgiveness. They exist in those of us who seem to be doing lifelong battle with them. They want full expression, full release. Take my finger-caught-in-the-drawer scenario. I'm going about my business, fixing dinner, when wham! - I don't get my finger out of the way fast enough. Instant anger. Huge anger. Out of proportion anger. The pain of the injury plus the fear caused by its suddenness strike the bullseye of the anger and fear resident in me all the time. And right on cue, I blow a gasket. First I get angry. Then I cry.
When fear and anger go unhealed – when the pain of incidents that evoked fear and anger in us go unhealed - they pace about for release. A very godly woman once told me that when we bury our emotions, we always bury them alive. Long ago and far away when the first frightening and unjust hurts occurred in my life, I didn't know what to do with the pain. I stuffed it away and buried it out of sight. Year after year of responding to pain this way did not kill the monsters of fear and anger in me. I just ignored them. All the emotions I bury will remain alive until they are healed. They will pace about like a monster in the corridors of my days and experiences. They will seek any door of opportunity that cracks itself open and they will burst into the situation in an attempt to vent some of the festering pain from which they originated. They oppress, they spew, they vent. They want to be heard and justified and validated.
But what they really want is healing.
Monday, November 14, 2011
A New Light On Fear
I've learned something new about my fear. I've known it to a small degree for a long time but I have recently seen it with so much more clarity that it seems brand new. For the next couple of posts I'll be writing about it.
Have you ever heard the saying, “No one can make you angry”? The concept is referring to the casting upon others the blame for our own anger, rather than owning it ourselves. It conveys the ideas that anger is a choice, that people don't cause our anger, but their behaviors trigger a response of anger in us. The same goes for inappropriate fear. People and circumstances don't necessarily make me afraid. People and circumstances trigger fearful responses in me, but fear is a choice I make.
As I was talking with a friend recently she rephrased this whole concept in a way that made some significant lights to go on inside me. We were talking about anger and she said it something like this: “anger is there in a person and it finds excuses to come out.”
From whatever sources long ago, and because God's healing was not applied to them at the time, fear has taken up an entrenched residence inside me. Unhealed fear. Like anger for some people, it's there inside me. And it seeks expression. It seeks release. Like an intangible monster trapped in a corridor of closed doors, it seems to pace along the corridor of my day and my experiences. It searches for any door that might be ajar through which it can burst out of it's confining hallway and into whatever situation might be at hand. Sometimes it breaks in at the least provocation, not because there's a valid or rational reason but simply because there was the opportunity.
This shed so much light onto the subjects of fear and anger, particularly my own. It provides me with another dose of evidence that my emotions are not reliable. Because it can burst into any situation - logical or illogical, warranted or unwarranted - my fear cannot be trusted. That's an unfortunate thing because fear is a God-given emotion, designed to protect us from real harm. An out of kilter fear sensor is not a safe thing. While safety is the thing I tend to long for most, my misfiring sensor – my pacing monster – latches onto things I shouldn't be afraid of and actually keeps me from the things my heart longs for in life and relationships. It keeps me from freedom and from love.
Have you ever heard the saying, “No one can make you angry”? The concept is referring to the casting upon others the blame for our own anger, rather than owning it ourselves. It conveys the ideas that anger is a choice, that people don't cause our anger, but their behaviors trigger a response of anger in us. The same goes for inappropriate fear. People and circumstances don't necessarily make me afraid. People and circumstances trigger fearful responses in me, but fear is a choice I make.
As I was talking with a friend recently she rephrased this whole concept in a way that made some significant lights to go on inside me. We were talking about anger and she said it something like this: “anger is there in a person and it finds excuses to come out.”
From whatever sources long ago, and because God's healing was not applied to them at the time, fear has taken up an entrenched residence inside me. Unhealed fear. Like anger for some people, it's there inside me. And it seeks expression. It seeks release. Like an intangible monster trapped in a corridor of closed doors, it seems to pace along the corridor of my day and my experiences. It searches for any door that might be ajar through which it can burst out of it's confining hallway and into whatever situation might be at hand. Sometimes it breaks in at the least provocation, not because there's a valid or rational reason but simply because there was the opportunity.
This shed so much light onto the subjects of fear and anger, particularly my own. It provides me with another dose of evidence that my emotions are not reliable. Because it can burst into any situation - logical or illogical, warranted or unwarranted - my fear cannot be trusted. That's an unfortunate thing because fear is a God-given emotion, designed to protect us from real harm. An out of kilter fear sensor is not a safe thing. While safety is the thing I tend to long for most, my misfiring sensor – my pacing monster – latches onto things I shouldn't be afraid of and actually keeps me from the things my heart longs for in life and relationships. It keeps me from freedom and from love.
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