the river of anger

There are many rivers that run through me. One looks like joy. Another looks a lot like hope. And one of them definitely looks like anger.

As I journey deeper into my life, I’m noticing more and more how often I avoid swimming in that specific river.

Before last fall, I didn’t know that river was inside me. Sure, I got angry from time to time. I could feel the rage that boiled under the surface once in a while. But once I started interacting with the Enneagram, and saw that people like me (perfectionists!) are often angry because the world is so imperfect, this river of anger came into my daily awareness.

Anger is messy and imperfect. And like any good perfectionist, I’m driven to order the world around me so I’ve seen anger as something wrong with me. Something to be avoided, repressed, denied.

“A good, nice, sweet girl is never angry.”

Lie.

Bringing this river of anger up into my reality has been a painful and beautiful gift this year. To truly welcome an important piece of how I move in the world is life changing. No denial or escape. To own this part of me is liberating.

Once we start pulling back the blanket on our life and seeing why we do what we do, it’s fascinating how much we’ve picked up a long the way that doesn’t serve us anymore. It helped when we were five or twenty but now it’s keeping us stuck. We’ve all got places like this. Once we get curious and look a little deeper and bring these things into our awareness, then we can intentionally choose to let go of certain ways of being.

Death, resurrection, death, resurrection. This is the work of God in your heart and in mine.

God is giving us a new story. Every day.