Dealing With Anger and Hurt

Dealing with anger and hurt is one of the hardest things we as humans cope with in our lifetime. Anything and anyone can cause us to feel these emotions side by side with no warning. It leaves us feeling helpless, feeling as though nothing will allow us to reverse time to get rid of those emotions or to heal them as quickly as they showed up.

I’m writing this post because in this last week I experienced both anger and hurt that tore at my heart recklessly. It caused the spiritual war that is always occurring in me (and us) to be amplified drastically. But I had a choice to make. And though I’m having to continue to make that choice day in and day out after what occurred, I was nudged to give encouragement and advice to those of you experiencing the same emotions. Through my story, I want to show you that it is possible to still feel anger and hurt but to feel them in a way that will end up healing you rather than causing more damage to your heart and those around you.

Here’s what happened…

Over the summer, my husband and I got a new dog from the humane society. He is so cute and has so much personality, but he is also difficult to take care of. He comes from a past filled with abuse, found as a stray walking the streets with fleas and other health issues. Training him is nearly impossible as he’s stuck in his ways, is fearful, and is high-energy. We have had some success in the last two months teaching him simple things like ‘sit’ and ‘lay down.’ We’ve had many learning curves with him that resulted in buying a baby gate and a kennel. All of the successes and learning curves (not failures because we are not failing on him or giving up on him), have not prepared me for the moment of immense anger and hurt that I experienced with him.

This last week, my husband and I left the house for about thirty minutes to go play a game of basketball down the street. We left him and our other dog downstairs, books out of reach (because he’d previously gotten a hold of those), things placed on the center of tables so that he couldn’t reach them, and the stairs gated so he couldn’t have free roam all over the house. There was nothing that we thought he could reach or get into. But later as we walked in the door, we saw paper shredded everywhere… he had jumped on the dining table using the chairs and gotten a hold of my precious Bible:(

I have had this Bible for eight years and planned on having it for the rest of my life, it being the one Bible I use for everything. It was the number one material item that I always planned to grab if I had to choose one thing to save in case of a fire or disaster or whatever. It had memories and underlined verses that when I looked back, I would remember the very sin and events that Jesus healed me from and redeemed me from.

Right then and there I was overcome first by anger and then by hurt. I have been angry before, but this is one of the top few times that I’ve been livid. After my brain comprehended what I was looking at before me, I broke down and sobbed. My Bible, the words of God that I had held closely in that book between those covers was destroyed.

Two Choices

Eventually I’d have to make a decision on how to act on those feelings. I couldn’t sit in the corner chair crying forever (though I wanted to). My wonderful husband took action for me for the time being by disciplining our dog and then coming to my side and comforting me. But even that didn’t take the place of the choice I would have to make after.

There’s two specific roads that I could have gone down after feeling anger and hurt towards our dog. The first one is a road that leads to harboring bitterness and allowing that anger to fester and overtake me. It’s a choice that would cause me to act on my anger and hurt in wrong and sinful ways. The second road would lead me to extending grace and forgiveness where it was not deserved. This choice is arguably the harder of the two to make, but it is the most healing and life-giving choice that can be made.

I want to take a closer look at these two roads/choices and paint the picture of what it would be like if I had chosen one over the other.

Choosing Bitterness and Unrighteous Anger

When we are struck with anger and hurt, our first reaction is to want that very thing that hurt us to be in pain as well. We want them to understand what we’re feeling, we want justice to be served, and we don’t want them to go off scotch free without any repercussions.

The Bible strictly warns us against growing bitter. Hebrews 12:15 tells us that the root of bitterness will lead to trouble. (…that no “root of bitterness” springs up and causes trouble). Trouble not only for those around us, but for ourselves. Bitterness and unrighteous anger does not produce the righteousness of God (James 1:20), but draws us further away from God because we are allowing ourselves to act sinfully on the anger within us. If being drawn away from the righteousness of God isn’t trouble, than I don’t know what is!

So let’s just say that I had chosen the road that leads to bitterness by me dwelling on my anger and allowing it to fester and turn into sin. I’m gonna be real honest, I wanted to hurt our dog, I wanted to hit him, I wanted him to be disciplined longer than is right, and I wanted to give up on him and give him back to the humane society. In fact, I immediately declared that I hate this dog, even though I actually love him. If I had hit our dog, not a consequential/disciplining swat but a full on hit, I would have caused trouble with the trust I’ve been building with him over the past two months. If I gave up on him and got rid of him like an old t-shirt, not only would that be horrible for him, but I would never learn how to handle the inevitable anger I would experience later on in life. AND I would have caused trouble in my heart by allowing myself to sinfully act on my anger by beating my dog. That one hit would begin rooting the bitterness and anger in my heart. Then later, because of that existing root, I would act on it again towards our dog when he did something else. And so on and so forth until that root was so big that it would be near impossible to dig it up.

We all know that feeling of anger and bitterness because we all struggle with it at some point in our lives. You know that constricting feeling that wells up in you when you’re reminded of the very thing that caused that anger in the first place? Each and every time you have the choice to either root it deeper in your heart or choose the second road: forgiveness and grace.

Forgiveness and Grace (Kindness and Tenderheartedness)

Ephesians 4:31- 32 says “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you” (emphasis added).

Every time I’ve read this in the past I’ve thought “Done! Easy! I can do that.” In those moments when I’m not feeling angry, hurt, or bitter it’s easily done. However, when those strong emotions do come, being kind, tenderhearted, and forgiving is often the last thing we want to do.

But it is the most rewarding choice to make when dealing with anger and hurt and bitterness. Why? Two things occur as a result of choosing to extend forgiveness and grace rather than act sinfully on our anger and rooting bitterness: love and righteousness.

Love

We’ve all heard of the 1 Corinthians “love” passage. It’s used in weddings, anniversaries, songs, poems, cards, etc. But there is so much truth to these words. 1 Corinthians 13:5 says “It [love] does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful.” In other words, love is not resentful or bitter. If I choose to be bitter and angry towards our dog and constantly use the event of him shredding my Bible against him, then there would not be a single ounce of love towards him and I would never enjoy the gift God gave us through our dog.

If you choose to root bitterness in your heart towards the person or thing that angered and hurt you, love will not come from you towards them. In fact, it will be almost impossible to love them. As Christians, we are to love because Christ first loved us (1 John 4:19). But when you choose to forgive them and extend grace, love flowing through you from Christ will help to heal that relationship and your own heart.

Righteousness

Choosing to forgive whatever or whoever caused us to feel angry and hurt is an act of obedience to God – it’s a righteous act! In obedience, we put away bitterness and wrath and anger. In obedience, we become kind and tenderhearted and forgiving. Psalm 4:4 so clearly says, “Be angry, and do not sin.” Now, it’s not saying that we are supposed to be angry every second of our lives, but when we are angry, don’t sin! James 1:19-20 says, “Let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.” When we are angry, we need to choose to not be sinfully angry as the anger of man does. By being angry and not sinning, the righteousness of God is produced within us. Isn’t that amazing!!??

What are you going to choose?

You can choose to go down the road of bitterness and unrighteous anger. In those moments that we do, we feel like we are making things better for ourselves, that we are dealing with our anger and hurt in a way that will get rid of it. But we are foolish to think this way. For as we see, bitterness taking root in our hearts from our anger and hurt leads to trouble and unrighteousness.

You can also choose to go down the road that offers forgiveness and grace to the very thing that caused you anger and hurt. And in the end, though it will take time to heal that anger and hurt, God will bless you as you obey His command to forgive.

Choosing Daily

This is a choice you may have to choose daily, depending on how deep the anger and hurt runs or how bad the situation was. For me, I have to choose daily to forgive my dog and show him grace. Because every day I have looked for my Bible to use it for something and it’s not there. Every day I have to choose to forgive my dog because I know if I don’t, I will never love this dog like he needs me to and I will struggle to have the righteousness of God produced in me where rooted bitterness has planted itself firmly.

I know that the very thing that caused me to feel anger and hurt is just a dog, but regardless of what or who hurts any of us – whether it be our parents, our siblings, our husband, our friends, or our coworkers – our hearts’ reaction is the thing that matters, just as Jesus points out several times in His parables – it’s a matter of the heart.

I pray that whenever you experience anger and hurt that you will deal with it in a way that is pleasing to God. I pray that each time you are tempted to act sinfully on your anger that you will turn immediately to Him and seek out His love, as He is our source of love to extend to others.

I would love to hear how you have experienced anger and hurt but in the end became healed, even if at one point you chose to be bitter (we’ve all done it!).