ANGER
MANAGEMENT
I am always impressed with couples
who manage to get through a divorce without a lot of anger, hostility or
bitterness. (Sometimes, they have done
it so well I have wondered why they bothered to get divorced at all!) In spite of the illusions created through
television and movies, it doesn’t happen very often, and from what I have seen
factors that seem to make the difference include whether or not there are
children, if finances are manipulated, or if there is an affair all have significant
impact on the emotional outcomes.
However, sometimes it is also merely a matter of temperament, the kinds
of choices the individuals makes, and sometimes it is merely the matter of one
individual simply acquiescing to accept whatever injustices are imposed. Those who acquiesce are sometimes very
forgiving people and do so in a manner that might serve them well over time,
while others acquiesce in a way that is merely stuffing resentments that
surface later on.
In Ephesians 4:26, Paul warns us against
harboring anger by challenging us to not allow the day to end with anger still
in our hearts. Hebrews 12:15 warns
against allowing bitterness to take root in our souls, because it infects
others and cuts us off from the grace of God.
In divorce, trying to take these verses seriously is a real
challenge.
It is a difficult choice to not
let the various injustices, betrayals and fears foster these emotions. Eviction from your home, financial
uncertainty thrust upon you, lies cast your way, lack of concern for your
needs, abandonment by an individual you once trusted an loved dearly…these all
create such tension that anger and rage easily surface. In fact, for many of us, they are almost
unavoidable, and the behavior of some spouses in the process of divorce
exacerbates those feelings almost daily.
Sometimes these emotions become so hardened that the individual nurtures
and carries their anger and hatred for many, many years, creating not only
problems between the two, but even enslaving the angry person in a bondage of
bitterness and rage.
It is even more disturbing, I
believe, when those feelings get handed down to children. All too often children form opinions and
judgments based on childish interpretations of the things they observe, and
then jump into the anger bandwagon toward one parent or another. Very often, they discover much later their
mistake, and that they have adopted feelings that are not theirs to have, based
on information that has been represented from only one perspective. It is very sad to see, especially when that
attitude infection passes on unsuspected for many years.
So what to do? I don’t believe that anger has NO place in
our lives…even Jesus experienced anger in his life and acted upon it on several
occasions. But he never harbored his
anger or allowed it to fester into rage and bitterness. And the anger he tended to act upon was anger
he experienced over the mistreatment of others, not of himself. Peter mentions that when he was persecuted
himself, he chose silence as his response.
I have known people who managed this path in divorce, though most
struggle with it.
The key, I believe, is not so much
whether or not you feel angry, as to what you let your anger do.
Do you make your choices and actions based on
anger?
Do you allow your anger to
fester, or do you deal with it daily?
Does anger harden your heart into bitterness and hatred, or do you
forgive offenses as they arise, refusing to carry them from one day to the
next?
If you are years out of your divorce,
does the anger still rage within, or have you honestly let it go?
Do you allow, no encourage, your children
to love their other parent, or, out of your own anger, do you poison their
minds with misinformation and personal interpretations that turn them against
the other parent?
It doesn't mean you
cannot be honest with them about shortcomings of the other parent, but it does mean you acknowledge forthrightly that even with all their shortcomings, the
other individual is still their parent and, as such, deserves some
degree of respect from the child.
God’s call is to forgive, for
James reminds us that our anger does not attain the level of the righteous
anger that only God has.
Being angry is
not a very pleasant way to live, nor does it win one very many friends. I certainly don’t enjoy being around angry
people, do you? The destructive emotions
of festering anger, resentment, hatred and bitterness will rob you of the joy
and very presence of God in life. Take a
stand, move toward forgiveness and mercy.
It is the way of living that God honors.
And, it will keep you in touch with the grace of God for yourself, as
well.
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