Embracing Anger

 “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people.” Leviticus 19:18 

 

My dad was an alcoholic. He came close to drinking himself to death in his forties, but God intervened and gave him the strength he needed to battle his disease. By the time he finally passed away from liver cancer, he had been sober for more than forty years. 

 

My mother went to college at fifteen, married my dad at seventeen, had my brother at nineteen and me at twenty. She returned to college when I was in fourth grade to earn a degree, fearing my dad’s drinking would cost him their livelihood. I don’t remember a time when my parents were happy together, but I have letters that reassure me I was born from love. 

 

As a military officer, my dad was gone as much as he was home. When he was home, he was detached. By the time I was in middle school, his drinking became so severe, he was hospitalized. He was told if he continued drinking, it would cost him his life. He fell off the wagon, within the first year. 

 

Alcohol and anger did not mix well together. My brother and I would build forts in our closets to avoid the sound of my parents’ arguments. I was better at tuning the noise out than my brother was. Still as I moved into adulthood, my childhood desire to find peace in my own life drove me to help others find peace in their lives.

 

This trait served me well in my personal and business relationships. I have been able to deftly navigate conflict, but there is a fine line between peacemaking and appeasement. Appeasement has been a blind spot. I have chosen other people’s comfort over my own to keep the peace. 

 

“Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow.” Isaiah 1:17 

 

As a Christian, I learned to suppress my anger, confusing its appearance as a harbinger of sin, rather than a herald of injustice. In my fervor to avoid vengeance, I abdicated responsibility for neighbors who needed defense. 

 

“…and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” Romans 13:9

 

My parents taught me anger is the death to love. Religious leaders taught me anger was the opposition to love. Studying Jesus taught me the difference between righteous anger and vengeance IS love. Life is teaching me anger harnessed by love can be a powerful agent for change. I am turning sixty this year and learning to embrace my anger.