Posts Tagged ‘resentment’

Anger Landlord

Monday, January 7th, 2019

I’ve been renting out space in my heart to anger. I’m embarrassed admitting it, but it’s true. I have a whole room full of bitter rage towards people who have no single thought of me at all. I catch myself crying out to God to take my hurt away and some days, I feel like I’m okay. Then, my circumstances or what feels like a result of all that’s happened sneak back up and remind me of all the scars I have from the whole experience.

The trouble for me is that my anger doesn’t hurt them at all. They’re fine. Happy, even. Fulfilled and satisfied. Meanwhile, I’m bathing in a hot boiling poisonous tub of anger! I want to lash out and hurt back. Which in truth, I am doing that….only it’s me feeling all the pain. They are free.

What is it about anger that literally consumes us and fills us with such a dark ugly pain? Is it the “what if” of our situation? What if the thing that hurts so much didn’t happen? Would we be okay then? Would my heart not burn with frustration or bitterness? Could I wake up and not think of what happened as a personal act against me? Maybe I’m just not the person I should be. Maybe my heart is just a dirty black hole of unforgiveness.

I woke up this morning with chest pains. I had been dreaming about an argument I was having with a stranger at a church I’d never attended. She was scolding me for the way I treated another employee there. I tried everything to defend myself and with every explanation, she shut me right back down. I felt helpless. When I woke up, I could see my anger right in front of my face as if it were an ugly photograph of my insides.

I felt all the pain of the last 850 days pressing me down as if it were a heavy monster pinning me to the bed.

Anger is poisonous. It’s destructive and it robs us of peace. It steals our joy and as if it were rubbing salt into our wounds, it hurts inside and out. Anger changes us and replaces who we once were with a bitter version of who we never intended to be.

My rental space is coming up on the market. I’m only interested in tenants of joy, peace and forgiveness. Like cleaning out the garbage and slapping on fresh paint to the walls, my heart space has no room for the destructive vice of anger. Only love.

Love for the ones who’ve hurt me.
Love for the pain and living through it.
Love for the opportunity to see what needs to go from my heart & mind.
Love for all that God has secured and protected while I was mad as hell.
Love for those who never ever deserve it.
Love for a life that has been given even when I squandered it.
Love for all the new in my life.
Love for what was.
Love for what will be.
Love for learning the hard way to snap the heck out of it.
Love for myself.
Love for a God who sees, hears and still loves when I’m most unlovable.
Love for a heart that is human and frail but still chases God.
Love for reminding me, I will be okay.

So, here I am….doing a total flip job on my heart.

Dear Lord,

How ever do you love a servant like me? Angry, vicious and miserable? I have stood at heavens doors screaming and complaining about every misdeed done against me. When all the while, you stood strong listening and loving me. Why? I confess my anger and my resentment towards those who in my own mind I see as cruel and heartless. Forgive me for feeling so bitter towards them. I have been wrong. Help me to clear out the space I’ve been filling with the hottest anger and replace it with only love.

Amen

PIECES

Monday, July 31st, 2017

I think we learn at an early age how to navigate relationships in the most manipulative of ways just by the reactions of those around us. Think of the baby learning to smile and laugh, mommy makes faces or tickles and baby feels her joy and responds back with giggles and toothless smiles. Or the sneaky toddler touching the fancy shmoo-shmoo on the coffee table, he looks at mama…waits a second to see if she’s going to stop him and when she doesn’t he launches into a full-on grab of the forbidden item. Manipulation at it’s early stages. As we grow, our behavior does too. We learn to compartmentalize feelings, emotions and actions.

Our “training” doesn’t help us when it comes to feeling accepted or loved by God. We tend to feel useless or unlovable based on our earthly understanding of what is good and bad. Don’t misunderstand, sin is bad. Sinful lifestyles separate us from God. Repentance brings us back to Him and offers us a whole new chance. God doesn’t NOT LOVE US and then LOVE US based on anything that we do or don’t do (except acknowledging Him as Savior and Lord) – we are His children once we accept Him as Lord and He does not play games with His children.

Don’t you wish people were like that?

We tend to toy with people and relationships. God never does that. He just loves us, cares for us and promises us that He will never leave us or forsake us. He’s never coy or distant. He doesn’t get a thrill out of punishing us or withholding something we need from Him. We do that all the time with people. We get mad, hold grudges and we even act out cruelly to others.

I’m so glad God never acts like me.

Yesterday, the message at church was powerful. It forced me to look inward at my heart and the way I feel about loving others. Like most people, I love with conditions. Do you love me? Okay, I love you back! You mistreat me? I avoid you and treat you with disdain too! Perhaps those are protective conditions. I’m just trying to cover myself from pain or unkindness.

God isn’t into that. He doesn’t love in pieces. He doesn’t love under any conditions. He loves fully, without a care of His own treatment. Obviously, as a Christian I’ve lived like heck and still God held onto me as if I were His only child. Undeserved. Unearned. Unbelievable.

I’m convicted to change the way I love others.

My flesh is weak and wormy. Why? Because when it gets ugly in life I tend to turn bitter and resentful. When my hubby lost his job (oh ya, that.) I immediately felt all the anger and resentment a person could hold in one body towards anyone who had anything to do with destroying our livelihood. I was and still do feel so hurt that my insides twist up in knots threatening to send me to bed for days. Not good. Not at all like Christ wants for me.

If I’ve learned anything about God…..it’s that HE HAS ALL AUTHORITY AND POWER OVER ME AND MY CIRCUMSTANCES.

No one, even someone who means you harm has full authority over you. You can bank on that. God is all-consuming and He will cover (His child) and protect you from anything that isn’t from Him.

I don’t have to dwell on resentment or feel jilted by someone who doesn’t see life as I do – I can love and trust God to do whatever it is to make it right. He might do that now or even after I’m long gone. Whichever, I trust Him.

He doesn’t love in pieces and I don’t want to either.

Emotion # 9,748

Monday, January 13th, 2014

This move.  This crazy up & down emotion-filled move.  It's changing me.  I'm turning into a person that is weak, easily broken and a basket case of crying.  Really, I don't know how much longer I can keep up with it.  Just when I think I'm good….something else sneaks up on me and slams me to the ground of emotions.

I think I'm starting to get it when people say how much they hate moving.  I really hate moving!  Even with all the exciting parts of starting new and getting a great new house….moving is probably one of life's biggest challenges.  Throw in, my mother's illness & death…..all three of my children moving out around the same time and my hubby switching jobs!

I'm beyond NUT JOB status at this point and I'm wondering if I will ever recover.

Every part of our move was met with some sort of difficulty.  We moved in terrible snow conditions, a horrible rain storm and with very little help.  We were stretched so thin mentally & physically and on top of all that it COST US A SMALL FORTUNE to do all the danged work ourselves.  As if all of that were not enough…..now we are the talk of the town for leaving a mess behind.

Only, we made arrangements for the mess to be taken care of.

May I insert a recommendation to anyone making a job transaction over Facebook.  Don't do it!  What we thought would be completely handled….was not even close to being handled.  Therefore, leaving us open and vulnerable to reputation suicide for being trash leaving people.  I'm sick.  I'm embarrassed.  I'm angry!

The way I see it….if you volunteer to do something, do it!  I'm left feeling very resentful now and angry for trusting someone's word that they would clean up and haul away what was left.  That was the deal.  It was to be swept out after all the stuff was hauled away.  That didn't happen. What did happen is that I read on Facebook how trashy I am and awful for leaving MY MESS for the new owners of my old house.

So, there you go.  Emotion # 9,748 because I just can't seem to escape all the effects of moving and what it does to a person.

Will.  I. Ever. Be. Normal. Again?