Your Anger – It’s A Beautiful Gift

Have you ever thought of anger as a gift?

If you choose to unwrap your anger, you just might discover what a beautiful gift it is!

When my kids were still quite young and our budget was wildly tight, my husband made a grand purchase for my birthday. It was something I had not asked for and it felt like an extravagant splurge at the time. My thoughtful husband purchased me a stand mixer. Not a high-end KitchenAid mixer, but an off-brand stand mixer that truly transformed my life. That gift made the cooking I did each and every day an absolute breeze. I was hooked!

When that stand mixer eventually died and our budget was a bit flusher, I replaced it with a happy apple green KitchenAid mixer that still sits proudly on my counter and continues to get very regular use!

Now maybe cooking and baking are not your scene. I get it – it’s not for everyone – but my husband was wise! He knew what I loved doing and he spotted a way to make my life easier and for that I am incredibly grateful!

A stand mixer was the gift I didn’t realize I needed, yet what a beautiful gift it was!

What if I had decided to leave the stand mixer in the box and never experimented with using my thoughtful and practical gift? After all, it wasn’t on my birthday list!

Well, that’s what we so often do with our anger – we never unwrap that gift. Or we stuff it back in the box and dismiss it. Unlike my stand mixer, anger swells and eventually leaks out. Over time, anger expands to the point that it doesn’t just leak, it explodes!

The Gift

Your anger is shining a light on something inside you that needs attention and healing like your…

• Unmet needs –the need to be loved, significant, or accepted
• Unmet expectations – they lead to disappointment, hurt, and frustration
• Deep wounds – which when nicked, have you controlling, protecting, pretending, putting others down, or being defensive
• Feelings of unworthiness – when threatened you lash out and to mask your feelings or you may find yourself striving, seeking perfection, performing, or putting yourself last
• Feelings of shame –we all struggle to varying degrees with shame and anger is one way we attempt to divert the attention of others away from our shame filled feelings
• Feelings of being controlled – Beware, underneath those feelings may be making tasks and getting things done more important than relationships, being threatened by differences, or demanding that others be “obligated” the way you are
• Feelings of loneliness or Isolation – we all long to belong and be connected
• Feelings of inferiority – measuring ourselves by comparing or seeking perfection – neither of which are healthy measures
• Convictions – what you believe to be right, fair, or the ideal standard, may dampen your ability to accept the imperfections in others and/or shrink your ability to enjoy peace. When that happens, your anger around your convictions is actually working against you

The question is, will you receive the gift? Will you unwrap the gift and lean into the truth it is trying to reveal to you?

Five Ways to Handle Anger

1. Letting Anger Go – recognizing that you simply don’t have control over the situation and taking responsibility for your own response and expression of your anger.

2. Assertively – taking responsibility for expressing your anger constructively and perhaps vulnerably with a firm, but loving tone – the truth in love.

3. Denying – everything is just fine! I am not angry!

4. Aggressively – this includes, but is not limited to forms of aggression like criticism, complaining, and sarcasm or more obvious forms like rage, exploding, blaming, or intimidation.

5. Passive Aggressively – the silent treatment, pouting, procrastinating, telling everyone but the person who needs to hear about it, or doing little things to irritate the other person.

Please note, the first two are excellent ways to handle anger!

You Get to Choose

Anger in and of itself is not bad, Like any emotion, it’s just a feeling. It’s what we choose to do with that emotion that often get us into trouble.

Each time anger wells up within you is an opportunity to unwrap the gift and experiment with it: to dig a little deeper to find out what the anger is revealing to you. Then based on what you discover, you are able to make conscious choices about how best to respond.

Unpacking the Gift – Questions Worth Contemplating

As you contemplate the gift in your anger, remember, you are seeking out information about YOU. You can’t control anyone else, just YOU, and even that is quite challenging at times, right?

Here are a few questions to ponder:

• What are you believing about you? About God? And about the other parties?
• There is a story you are telling yourself about you – what is it? About God? And about the other parties?
• What’s the TRUTH about you? About God? And about the other parties?
• That TRUTH – what are you basing it on?
• Who or what are you blaming?
• When it comes to your anger, who or what are you taking it out on?
• How is your anger impacting you? Others?
• What have you discovered about you?
• How will you respond to what you now know?

Fear & Anger

As you tear off the wrapping paper and inspect your gift more closely, you may find that fear is entangled with your anger. Anger covertly hides fear causing you to be…

• Guarded
• Defensive
• Pessimistic
• Work excessively
• Inappropriate – resorting to humor or over the top ways
• Inauthentic
• Frustrated
• Assume – reading into the actions of others

Making It Right

Unpacking the gift of anger leads to new levels of awareness. And, if you let it, great character development too. Because our anger so often leaks or explodes out onto those around us, we get the chance to make things right and build character in the process. It’s takes integrity and courage to apologize and to ask those you’ve impacted or hurt to forgive you.

Practice

When our family gathers to celebrate birthdays or Christmas there‘s an abundance of help when it comes to unwrapping the gifts! My six grands love to help! It doesn’t matter if it’s their birthday or yours, their gift or yours, they are more than eager to help unwrap gifts!

Sam, my oldest grandson, had to be shown the process of unwrapping gifts the first time. Of course, my other five grands have witnessed this process repeatedly since they were itty bitty, so they’ve had plenty of practice!

Anything new takes practice!

If you have not been in the habit of unwrapping your anger, be patient with yourself and just start practicing! You might be surprised by what you find and how those gifts serve you just like my treasured stand mixer did!

Friend, what’s the beautiful gift in YOUR anger?

A Peek Into Scripture

In the New Living Translation, ANGER is mentioned 307 times and ANGRY is mentioned 149 times. What’s surprising is that many of these scriptures are referencing God’s anger. It describes God’s anger at “terrible, great, fierce…and righteous!

Dear friends, never take revenge. Leave that to the righteous anger of God. For the Scriptures say, “I will take revenge; I will pay them back,” says the LORD. Romans 12:19

Sadly, James 1:20 tells us that “Human anger does not produce the righteousness God desires.”

God’s anger takes a long time to kick in and He doesn’t hang on to anger. God’s quick to forgive!

The LORD is merciful and compassionate, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love. Psalms 145:8

O Lord, you are so good, so ready to forgive, so full of unfailing love for all who ask for your help. Psalms 86:5

His Example

As believers, we are to follow His example – to be slow to get angry and ready to forgive. (James 1:19/Colossians 3:13)

When we allow our unbridled anger to get the best of us, God has some strong words. He calls us fools! Ouch!

Control your temper, for anger labels you a fool. Ecclesiastes 7:9

Fools vent their anger, but the wise quietly hold it back. Proverbs 29:11

People with understanding control their anger; a hot temper shows great foolishness. Proverbs 14:29

If we are wise, we will manage our anger which is what “finding the gift in your anger” is all about! Getting to the root of our anger and taking constructive steps forward with God’s help. Because when we don’t, God calls it sin. More Ouch!

Don’t sin by letting anger control you. Think about it overnight and remain silent. Psalms 4:4

Instead, we are to get rid of anger and not let it control us.

Get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, harsh words, and slander, as well as all types of evil behavior. Ephesians 4:31

And “don’t sin by letting anger control you.” Don’t let the sun go down while you are still angry, Ephesians 4:26

And there are some sad consequences when we don’t deal with our anger including…

• It makes you sick! (Psalms 38:3)
• It’s contagious! (Proverbs 22:22-23 & 29:8)
• Leads to harm! (Psalms 37:8)

Gifts are meant to be unwrapped, explored, and used! Viewing your anger as a gift allows you to do just that – to see an area of your life that needs attention, perhaps for the first time! Odds are, exploring your “gift” will lead you to a thought or belief that’s not true and/or some confusion around your identity which is only found in Him!

Happy unwrapping!