I have always struggled with feeling anger.
Well, actually, that’s not entirely true. I was a pretty angry kid.
I once bit my sister on the stomach in a fit of rage over Barbies or something. I also permanently damaged our family computer screen by throwing a pen at it after losing at an online computer game. I was always incredibly emotional, feeling each internal sensation to the fullest of its capacity, including anger.
So then maybe it was after one too many screaming matches with my mom that never seemed to result in anything being resolved…
Maybe it was anger being the one emotion that felt somehow possible to control and suppress (tears were far too frequent an occurrence to try and omit any other from my feelings repertoire)…
Maybe it was the inadvertent teachings I received when coming to faith in college that anger = sin…
Maybe it was a combination of all of the above…
But somewhere along the way, I convinced my body that anger was a no-no. And ever since, I have found it an incredibly difficult emotion to feel, to be aware of, and to honor with the proper attention and patience it deserves.
And while this suppression of such a core emotion has, at times, served me well in regards to my relationships and interactions with others, it has also caused me great harm. While it has made me peaceable, amicable, and calm in professional settings, it has also allowed me to be abused, manipulated, and taken advantage of in those same environments. While it has often meant being well-liked, enjoyed, and appreciated by my peers, it has also meant being silent and avoidant in the presence of issues that demanded to be addressed or corrected. Silencing and suppressing my anger has often meant silencing and suppressing the fullness of my passions, cares, and discernment. It has often meant manipulating myself into believing certain situations “weren’t that bad”, “weren’t worth the trouble of addressing”, or “were just me overreacting.”
Truthfully, avoiding anger has hurt me just as much as it has helped me and coming to this realization has led to a lot of great strides in improving this over the last few years. And by strides I mean, whenever I feel the slightest hint of frustration, hostility, or disrespect I interrupt my crazy sobs with crazy laughter declaring, “I feel angry right now!!!” I use that moment of awareness to pay attention to where and how I feel this sensation in my body and consider what it longs to do in response. Such longings have led to having hard and uncomfortable conversations, seeking out needed and worthwhile affirmation and comfort, and simply balling my eyes out to Taylor Swift’s, Maroon while holding myself back from egging someone’s house (all of which proved to be equally healing and beneficial anger management strategies).
Yes, I have been quite proud at the progress that my body and I have made in terms of allowing anger to be felt, to flow, and to find its way out of my system. However, the one place where anger has still felt strictly forbidden has been in the midst of my relationship with God.
Now, don’t get me wrong— my theology has long allowed for and permitted the ability to be frustrated and angry with God. However, I am finding that there has long been a difference in accepting the reality that is inevitable angry feelings toward the Lord and actually believing that such feelings and the full expressing, flowing, and moving through them is a good and necessary part of the spiritual life. Yes, it is one thing to intellectually articulate, “God can handle your anger” and quite another to actually feel in the depths of your soul that resentment, rage, and furry toward the divine.
To be so mad you don’t want to speak.
To ask in the stillness of prayer for some space.
To feel so utterly betrayed, abandoned, and ridiculed by the God who promises to always be for you.
And it is even still a whole other experience to allow such feelings to fully flow through your system and body, expressing them without shame or any hint of suppression.
In the past, I have often tried to intellectualize my anger toward God. As if finding reasons “why” or uncovering new theological insights regarding the character of the Lord would dissipate the frustration I felt. I would simmer and dilute such bitterness until I could make enough sense of it to feel at peace with my Maker again. Rarely would I allow myself to simply feel the anger— letting it flow in freedom and vulnerability before the presence with which I have ultimately always felt safest.
At least until this last week— when the grief and torment was finally too much and the intellectual wondering was simply past the point of usefulness.
And it was then, in the midst of the rage and the furry that refused any longer to be tamed, in the midst of the curse words and the middle fingers toward the heavens that came as natural to me as breath itself— that is when the presence of heaven seemed to finally turn an ear toward such cries and tired outrage. The Divine blessed me with the words of writer, Cindy S. Lee and through them I was provided not answers nor intellectual insight, but simply permission.1
“A relationship that fails to yell and scream and curse at God for ungodly acts is a faith in denial.”
As I went to underline the sentence through enraged and exhausted tears, I felt the whisper of the Spirit add her own commentary too: It’s okay.
As Lee went on to write of feelings of hopelessness and desperation, all finding their rightful and useful place in the midst of our spiritual formation and ever becoming wholeness, I felt affirmation after affirmation that I was being seen, heard, and responded to in the midst of my own anger, hopelessness, and despair.
My God was not just “okay” with such anger being dealt and directed toward him. He was moved and effected by it too.
Our God is not a still-face mother, unresponsive to our cries of outrage and hostility. She is an empathetic caregiver that seeks to comfort, hold, and soothe, even in the midst of a violent outburst that rages on for far too long.
It is okay for us to thrash within her embrace.
It is okay for us to scream and cry and curse in the face of the one we rightly assume protection and action from.
It is okay for us to demand, expect, and remind the Divine to be who it is we know them to be.
And it is okay that often, it is anger, that allows us to get to this place of vulnerability, expectancy, and healing.
Lee writes further, “Healing comes from acknowledging the tensions rather than stuffing them down, covering them over, or becoming numb. We allow the discontent, disillusionment, fears, longings, and uncertainties to be our prayers.”2
So, for the sake of our healing, for the sake of our formation and the nearness we long for with the presence with which we should ultimately always feel safest, I grant you the same permission that Cindy and the Spirit of God granted me—
Rage on, beloved. It’s okay.
Lee, C. S. (2022). Our unforming: De-westernizing spiritual formation. Fortress Press.
Ibid.
I feel this deeply in my soul.
❤️ Rage on. It’s ok. I think I needed to read this today.