learnings on: ANGER

Two nights ago, my mind wouldn't stop walking through the park of many thoughts. I tossed and turned for about two hours before finally giving up and deciding to blog about the thoughts that were keeping me up. The computer wasn't on so I grabbed my trusty Blackberry and began blogging. Forty minutes later, after I finished up, I clicked "save". Except at 2am "exit" looks a lot like "save" apparently. Needless to say, I lost everything. But I felt it was a good lesson that I'm learning so I want to throw this on here. So here we go.

Anger - a strong feeling of displeasure and belligerence aroused by a wrong.

I've never really considered myself an angry person. However, there was a time in my life where I harvested feelings of anger more than any other. I reached a place where I finally decided that I didn't want to feel this way, so by God's grace, things slowly started changing. I wasn't producing any more angry thoughts, but I was still doing an excellent job at storing the ones already alive in me. At a worship gathering a few months back I came to a place where I was tired of being angry, tired of carrying these feelings around, and tired of letting all of this dictate my actions. So before God, and everyone in the congregation, I fell to my knees, then to my face in surrender.

Since then I've learned a whole new kind of anger...the kind that comes from hurt. You see, most of my anger never sprouted because I was hurt, but more because of my situations and surroundings. Sure, I've experienced hurt, but normally feelings of depression came from it.

Some big decisions are being made and have been decided upon among some really good friends. They're friends that I care very much for and have shared a lot of good memories and experiences with. And as strong as I try to act, the reality that I've felt hurt in dealing with these decisions have really made things difficult. Not because they have purposefully tried to hurt me, but because there have been inconsistencies in communication So here's what I'm learning now. In Thomas' world, when hurt is felt, anger is produced as a means of dealing with that hurt. Why? Well, that's a good question and unfortunately I do not have the answer at this time.

I believe that a requirement in being authentic is the ability to own up to shortcomings, struggles and to admit when you just don't know. So here we go...

"Hi, my name is Thomas."

'Hi, Thomas!'

"I'm using anger as a way to deal with my hurting"

With love,

---Thomas