Meditations from Zion

Sin is crouching at the door . . . and that door is anger. I know this to be true. I have seen the destructive power of angry explosions. I have seen them both against me and through me. Anger is a storm with no boundaries. Anger is unproductive. Anger is an invitation to mistakes; mistakes than cannot be easily corrected. Anger writes in indelible ink.

Genesis 4:6-7
 Then the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it.”

Anger is a reaction to circumstances and shows the lenses through which a person experiences that moment. Anger usually indicates that there were different expectations. We choose whether we hold on to this anger, this beast, or allow it to be tamed.

My bi-polar mother could not control her anger nor could she it as out of proportion to the actions. It made life very difficult and quite honestly, I found myself lying a great deal to avoid the explosions. I tuned in to the body language of a simmering storm. I became an adept.

But why then, when it was me that exploded toward my children, could I not see it as clearly. How did I recreate that monster?

Some say that anger can be good, that it clears the emotional storage bin. But I don’t have that kind of confidence in anger’s potential for good. It has brought no such cleansing.

My cleaner is tears. They wash my soul. And I am grateful for a God who collects them (Psalm 56:8).