When is it appropriate to be angry?
When the shock wears off and the truth settles in, the anger begins to flare up. For others even the initial shock throws us right into a fit of rage.
About 4 years ago, I was deeply betrayed by a fairly new friend. He had won my trust and then did something behind my back that shocked me. When I became aware of the news, I immediately marched over to his residence and demanded to know the whole truth. I was angry. I was hurt. I was out to get him. And I thought myself completely justified.
That night I said some things to him that I wish I could have taken back. But it wasn't until two years down the road that I came to this realization. I wrestled back and forth with whether my anger was justified or not. Was the incident horrific in nature? Yes. Was it hurtful? Yes. Was there a need for justice? Absolutely! That was exactly where I had found my reasoning to hurl insults at him.
But somewhere in our righteous anger, we can allow it to take us over. We can harness the strength of this emotion to great lengths. And we can invoke just as much harm as was first induced. Tit for tat. Eye for an eye. Tooth for a tooth.
There is nothing morally wrong about feeling angry. But if anger gets the best of us, it brings out the worst in us. Our tongue becomes a fire that sets the whole forest ablaze! (James 3:5)
As I walk through this tragedy with my friends, I see the whole gambit of feelings coming forward. And all of us are trying to justify our emotional state. We want to know that what we are feeling is the right way to respond. Whether we use scripture or memories or our own value system, we are all trying to support where we stand.
Understanding the natural way humans respond to tragedy helps us see what this emotional process looks like for my friends and I.
Any professional counselor will tell you that when a tragedy strikes people respond in the following phases: Denial which leads to Anger which leads to Depression and ultimately Acceptance or Resolution. Somewhere in the middle of all these emotions, forgiveness needs to be extended to the perpetrator. If we hold on to our anger, then we imprison ourselves.
The people of Rwanda would be the first to tell you that. They are still to this day trying to release their hearts from the pain of the genocide in 1994. Perpetrators are asking for forgiveness. And families of victims are trying to let the pain go and free themselves by saying, "I forgive you." But all of this is happening as the Rwandan people face the reality of the crimes committed. The murderers must own up to the horror of their actions. The families of the victims must stare that murderer in the face.
And in that moment of tension, reconciliation must happen.
The problem is that these things take time for the human heart. It's been 15 years since the genocide took place. And people are still not ready to forgive. And so it will be the same for many of my friends affected by this tragedy.
My prayer is simply that we would allow each other to fully walk (even crawl) through the grieving process. That we would allow these emotions to come. Ultimately, that we would not enslave ourselves to our own anger, but that somewhere in this tragedy we would find God and find each other.
If we can somehow find our way to this end (that of loving God with all our heart and loving our neighbor as ourselves) then God has been gracious to us all.
Is anger the answer? Well, its not the final answer. But it is certainly a part of the natural human process. But we must not allow it to bring about further damage than what has already been done. And we must realize that when the anger subsides, the depression will set in. And that is where we will have to wrestle with the real pain and real questions that surface when tragedy has come.
All the more reason why we need each other now more than ever...when trust has been broken.
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