June 28, 2011
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My Mad; My Mask
I have a mad response. If I get embarrassed, offended, rejected, made fun of, talked bad about…it doesn’t matter – I get mad. Boiling angry inside my head. Gratefully, I have been, for the most part, quite capable at hiding the severity of my anger. I have asked myself; I have asked my mom; I have asked my husband, I have even asked God “Why is anger always my ‘go to’ reaction?” No one has seemed to have an answer for me.
I couldn’t begin to count the times that I have tried to cry when I was hurt or offended by someone. I know deep down that I am very, very sad. I physically ache with the pain, but very rarely do I cry for myself. I am always too mad to cry. My anger covers every other emotion until all I see is red. All that I feel is rage.
The worst thing about my anger is that it is like a concrete wall between me and the voice and presence of God. I have reminded Him so often, “God, see me!!?? I am mad and I am not sinning. That’s allowed, remember? Now please take it away. I beg of you – its like chains around my neck and my heart.” But I have always felt left to handle it on my own. To let it pass over me and just endure it. I have been enduring waves of anger for as long as I can remember. Since I was so very little.
Last night I crawled into bed with my annoying companion: Mad. I felt like I was lying in bed with a weighted vest around my lungs. I was so sick of it.
But then I remembered that I had an advantage this time! I had just spent five days last week at youth camp with our teenagers. I was refreshed. Jesus had done amazing things in my heart and, like Hope does when she doesn’t want Blake to go to work, I was still clinging tightly to His neck.
So I cried out right in His ear because I felt that close,
“God I know you can speak to this anger inside of me. I know you can set me free.”And suddenly I was a tiny girl again.
I was treated for Leukemia for three years as a preschooler. Every eight weeks I would have to get a bone marrow biopsy. Today they sedate young children for this procedure. They did not back then. I remember my parents would take me to a room where there would be a few nurses who would begin to talk and play with me. I knew going in that I was going to have to get a “back stick.” I remember the dread that I would feel. But as the nurses would talk, play, and smile, I would relax. I would begin to think that everything would be okay. That nothing bad would happen. I would start to like those pretty, sweet nurses. Then, before I knew it, things would change and I would be getting the “back stick.”
And I remember feeling hot, searing rage at those nurses. It was worse than the physical pain.
God said to me, “That is where you learned this. That is where you picked up this concrete wall that you have carried with you all of these years.”
The physical pain, that the medical field has agreed is too much for a child to endure, along with the emotional pain of feeling betrayed by the nurses was just too great for me to face. So I fought back with anger. Deep inside of me anger.
God said to me, “Give yourself the freedom to feel the pain.” So I did. I felt the pain under all of my anger. Pain from much, much more that just the mad I had dragged with me to bed last night. It hurt. Deep, real, honest, raw hurt. But it felt so good, because as I let myself own up to the pain, my anger began to fade.
And I sensed that concrete wall, that despised and hated concrete wall begin to crumble.
And I heard God whisper, “I am near to the brokenhearted.”
He wants the real me. I knew that. We all know that. What we don’t know, however, is that so often we do not even know who we really are. We do not know what our REAL emotions even are. We don’t know where we lost the ability to feel honest emotions.
And God can’t minister to our masks. Our masks are lies. My anger was a lie. It had to be brought to the light so that God could minister to the real me. To the insecure me. To the easily offended me. To the rejected and betrayed me. He wants to comfort me as I face the truth of my pain and let Him lift it off of me in His time and in His way. He does not want my pain covered up by Satan’s substitutes: anger, addictions, self destruction, shame, etc..
What is your mask? When did you pick it up? Jesus spoke to my mask. He called forth the truth inside of me. I want Him to do that for you. I want to pray for you. I want YOUR concrete wall to crumble.
God, give us strength to face those dark corners of our darkest days where we built concrete walls thinking it would be easier to hide behind them, then face the pain. Thank you for being comfortable with our pain and our tears. Comfortable in a way that you cry with us, your grieve with us, your mourn with us. Thank you for loving us as we discover who we really are. And thank you that you turn mourning into dancing. Today, I feel like dancing.
