“Once you have finished with your family, take a look at your school career; go back as early as you can remember. Did a teacher or student wrong you? If so, put the person’s name and what he or she did. Then look at other relationships that you may have had during childhood, relationships at church, in the neighborhood, during the teenage years, dating relationships. List everything that comes to mind. Then move to the college years. Think in terms of professors, fellow students, girlfriends, or others. Then go through your medical school experience, your residency, and all of your vocational settings up until the present. Then look at your relationship with Julie and the children. Begin with your dating relationship and move through your marriage.
“Think about your relationships with your extended family, business associates, and others. Try to be as comprehensive as you can. You can see why I said that this may take some time. I think it will be very helpful, so I want to ask you to give it your best efforts.”
I sensed that Mike didn’t know exactly where we were going with all of this, but he was intrigued with the idea and readily agreed. “I would also like to suggest that the two of us meet one more time before we invite Julie to join us.”
“Fine,” he said. “I’ll tell Julie.”
Two weeks later, Mike returned to my office with a yellow legal pad with three pages of names and events where he had been wronged throughout his life. “This assignment was very revealing,” he said. “I’ve never thought about this before, and I never anticipated that I would come up with all of this. But once I started, my memory kicked in and it flowed faster than I could write. Actually, it was a very painful experience. I’ve never spent this much time thinking about my past. I’ve always been busy accomplishing my goals. My philosophy has been ‘You can’t change the past, so why bother with it?’”
“There’s some truth to that philosophy, but there are two other realities,” I said. “One is that we can learn from the past, and the other is that the past often affects our present behavior.”
I took Mike’s list, read his father’s name first, and silently read the statements describing the wrongs that his father had done. Then I looked at Mike and asked, “Did you ever share these things with your father?”
“No,” he said. “I learned early that you don’t talk with my father, especially if you disagree with him.”
I then read what he had written beside his mother’s name and asked, “Did you ever share any of these things with your mother?”
“No, I didn’t want to hurt Mom. She’d been through enough. I just tried to keep peace with her.” I glanced down, reading his brother’s name and the list beside his name. “Did you share any of these with your brother?” I asked.
“Well, when we were both at home, yes. Actually we fought about most of those things.”
I continued down the list one by one, reading the names and events of people who had wronged Mike through the years. There were thirty-four names and numerous events. In only two cases had Mike processed his anger in a positive way. In the other thirty-two cases, Mike had simply tried to forget and move on.
THE HEAVINESS OF INJUSTICE
“Do you understand now why I guessed in our last session that you had a lot of anger stored inside?” I said.
“I think you were right, but how did you know?”
“Because you exhibited two common traits of stored anger,” I continued. “One is to use your words—you ‘complained a lot’ about Julie and the children’s behavior. To use Julie’s words, you ‘snapped at [her]’ and the children. The other is your lethargic behavior over the past several months. To use your words, you’ve ‘lost your bounce.’ To use Julie’s words, you ‘seem to have lost the spark that used to be there.’ I want to share with you why I believe this has happened.
“Throughout your lifetime, you have suffered some rather severe injustices. Understand, I’m not suggesting that all the people who have wronged you are bad people. What I’m observing is that a number of people in your life have done things that have deeply hurt you. Whenever we are wronged, anger is the natural emotion that arises within. The healthy way of handling that anger is to lovingly confront the person who has wronged us and work through it, seeking a resolution. Often, however, because of various circumstances, we are not able to do that. Children, for example, seldom process their anger toward parents—normally out of fear that the parents will not understand or that it will make things even worse. Thus, your response of not confronting your parents with your anger is very normal for children and teenagers.
“With your younger brother, you did process your anger somewhat by verbally arguing with each other and sometimes physically fighting each other. Neither of these led to a resolution of the issues that stimulated the anger. In most of the other situations that you have described, your response was to try to forget about the wrong that had been inflicted and to go on with your life. However, anger is not resolved that easily. In fact, wrongs are not forgotten unless they are processed. The fact that you can remember these several years after they happened indicates that you have not really forgotten them.”
Mike was listening quietly, nodding his head at key points. I continued.
“Whenever we have experienced a series of wrongs over a long period of time, our emotional ability to absorb these wrongs is stretched beyond capacity. One of two things begins to happen. We begin to express this anger not toward the people who perpetrated it through the years but toward other people in our present setting—in your case, toward Julie and the children. So you began to verbalize your anger by making critical remarks toward them. That is clearly a different approach from the one you have made through the years. The second way your anger is evidenced is by the beginning stages of depression.
“The purpose of our anger is to motivate us to take constructive action with the person who has wronged us, but if we fail to do this, unresolved anger becomes a dark cloud over our lives. We have been wronged, wronged, wronged—wronged throughout our lives by numerous people in numerous ways. The heaviness of all that injustice begins to settle upon our emotions. And we find ourselves becoming lethargic toward life, no longer interested in the things that used to stimulate our interest. If positive steps are not taken, the person goes on to become more and more explosive and/or more and more depressed.”
“It all makes a lot of sense,” Mike said. “But why did all of this just start happening only recently?”
“I think it was triggered by your mother’s death,” I responded. “Even though she had been sick and in the nursing home for the last three years of her life, I think her death touched the deep unresolved emotions that were inside and brought all this to the surface again. Before that time, the unresolved anger was covered by layers of activity that kept the conscious mind occupied on reaching worthwhile goals.”
“Like a latent infection,” Mike interjected, “waiting for a stimulant.”
“Exactly.”
“That makes a lot of sense,” Mike said. “But what am I gonna do about it? I can’t go back and talk to all these people. My mother’s dead; my father would never understand. Some of the other people are also dead, and others, I have no idea where they live.”
“That’s true,” I said, “so I’m going to make another suggestion. What I’m going to suggest will not rebuild relationships with any of these people. In fact, some of the people you no longer have a relationship with anyway. But what I’m going to suggest will process your anger in a positive way and allow you to change the two negative behaviors you are now experiencing.”
I knew that Mike was a strong Christian and that he would understand the biblical foundation for what I was about to suggest. “I want to begin by reminding you about two basic fundamental characteristics of God. God is loving and God is just. God cares about the well-being of His creatures, but God is also just and ultimately will bring all men to justice. That’s what the cross is all about—Christ took the full penalty of our sins. And for thos
e who will accept that, God can forgive and still be just.1
“There’s one other biblical concept. The Scriptures say that ‘Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.’2 It is never our job to vindicate ourselves by making people pay for the wrongs they’ve done toward us. They will either confess those wrongs to God and experience His forgiveness based upon what Christ has done for them, or they will face God with those sins, and He will be the ultimate and final judge.”
RELEASING THE WRONG TO GOD
“Now here is what I want to suggest,” I said, looking directly at Mike. “As soon as possible, I want you to take this legal pad and get alone with God. I want you to read each name and each offense to God; read it aloud. Then say to God, ‘You know what my father did—this and this and this and this. And You know how wrong it was for a father to do these things to a child, and You know how much they hurt me. They’ve been inside all these years. But today, I want to release my father and all of these wrongs to You. You are a just God, and You are a loving God. You know everything about my father. I don’t know what motivated him to do these things. You know his motives as well as his actions. And so I want to put him into Your hands and let You take care of him.
“‘Do whatever You wish, whatever is good, whatever is loving. I put him into Your hands, and I release all of these wrongs to You, knowing that if he confesses them, You will forgive him. If not, You will deal with him on these matters. But I release them and give them to You today.’
“I want you to go through your whole list, everyone’s name and everyone’s actions and release them to God one by one, wrong by wrong,” I told Mike. “Release them to God. Once you’ve done that, I want you to thank God that all of these things are now released to Him. I want you to ask God to fill your life with His Holy Spirit and give you the power to be the man He wants you to be in the future. And also ask Him for the ability to process future anger experiences when they occur. People will continue to do you wrong. Even Julie will do you wrong, and your children may do you wrong. But we are going to talk about how to process that anger in a positive way, and that’s what I want you to learn.
“So you are going to ask God to teach you how to process your anger. Then as a symbol that you have released all these things to God and they are no longer in your life but in His hands, I want you either to burn or tear up and destroy these lists.”
Two weeks later, Mike and Julie returned. Mike had shared with her what he had done. “It’s been a good two weeks,” Julie said. “This is one of the greatest things that has ever happened in our lives. I feel like I’ve got a new husband.”
“It’s been a good two weeks,” Mike said. “The process of sharing those things with Julie was hard; sharing them with God was easier. But I feel like a load has been lifted.”
“He hasn’t been critical a single time this week,” Julie said.
“Well, the anger is gone,” Mike replied. “There’s no need to be critical, and I’m beginning to feel excited about life again.”
The rest of the session was spent helping Mike and Julie establish new guidelines for handling their anger in the future. Those guidelines are found in chapter 3. We had two more sessions dealing with other minor issues in their relationship. Mike and Julie had passed a significant milestone in their marriage, one that has greatly enhanced their marital intimacy and has enabled them to help many other couples over the past ten years.
ANGER AND DEPRESSION
After thirty-five years of counseling, I am convinced there are thousands of Mikes in the world, many of them extremely successful in their vocation and for many years untroubled by their hidden anger. But sooner or later, unprocessed anger will express itself either in violent behavior toward innocent people or in deep, unresolved depression, which keeps the individual from reaching his or her potential for God and good in the world. Please do not hear me saying that all depression is caused by unresolved anger. This is certainly not the case. But depression is sometimes the result of anger that is stored inside the individual over a long period of time.
When a person remains angry for the long term, he or she must process this anger to forestall those explosive or implosive responses. The process I have described in this chapter by sharing Mike’s story would be helpful for anyone. Many people like Mike are totally unaware that past experiences are affecting their present behavior. Making a list of the wrongs perpetrated against us through the years is the first step in identifying unprocessed anger. Once the list is made, you may ask yourself, “How did I process my anger over this event?” If you find that it was not processed or was processed poorly, then it is never too late to deal with unresolved anger.
However, let me reiterate what I said to Mike: Processing our anger with God in this manner does not in and of itself rebuild relationships with the people who have wronged us. Rather it brings emotional and spiritual healing to us. Equally important, it makes our lives different in the future.
Whether one should go back and seek to deal personally with the individuals who wronged us is a decision that requires prayer and careful thought. There are numerous factors to consider, most of which we discussed in chapter 3 when we talked about processing anger with the person who wronged us. When this can be done, it brings the potential not only of personal healing but of healing the relationship. At the same time, it brings the potential for further rejection, hurt, and wrong. If the person is still alive and the relationship is still important, I recommend that one prayerfully consider this alternative. Usually such an attempt at reconciliation will be more productive if the individual has the assistance of a trusted pastor, counselor, or friend. (For a fuller exploration of the topic of reconciliation and apology, see my recent book When Sorry Isn’t Enough: Making Things Right with Those You Love, coauthored with Dr. Jennifer Thomas [Northfield].)
Such reconciliation always requires forgiveness—which brings us to the topic of our next chapter.
QUICK TAKES
SIX STEPS TOWARD DEALING WITH LONG-TERM ANGER
1. Make a list of (significant) wrongs done to you over the years.
2. Analyze how you responded to each event or person.
3. If the person is no longer living or available to reconcile, release your anger toward them to God.
4. For those still living, decide whether to seek reconciliation or to “let the offense go.”
5. If you decide to proceed with reconciliation, bring a trusted third party, such as a pastor, to the meeting. This third party can act as a mediator or facilitator during the dispute and keep the dialogue on the main issue.
6. Seek forgiveness. Reconciliation almost always requires forgiveness, usually by you, but sometimes by the other party, whom you have perhaps unintentionally offended.
Forgiveness is not a method to be learned as much as a truth to be lived.
NANCY LEIGH DEMOSS
WHAT ABOUT FORGIVENESS?
Madison, a high school sophomore, had worked all summer getting ready for the cheerleader tryouts. When the tryouts were over, she felt good about her performance. A week later she discovered that she was not selected. She was crushed. Four days later she found out that Sophia, whom she thought to be her friend, had lied to the cheerleading coach, telling her that Madison was using drugs. Now Madison is livid with anger—valid anger, anger provoked by an injustice. She was sinned against by Sophia, whom she had trusted.
How should Madison—or any of us who feel sinned against by someone we trusted—respond? Where does forgiveness come in?
HOW GOD FORGIVES US
The Bible paints a picture of our wrongs against God, and how He chooses to respond. The prophet Isaiah thundered this message to ancient Israel: “It’s your sins that have cut you off from God. Because of your sins, he has turned away and will not listen anymore” (Isaiah 59:2). We are never separated from God’s love, but sin does separate us from His fellowship. The New Testament reminds us that “the wages of sin is death.” Death is the ultimate pi
cture of separation. Of course, this is not what God desires for His creatures; therefore, the writer quickly adds, “The free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23).
God desires fellowship with His creatures. That is what the cross of Christ is all about. God offers His forgiveness and the gift of eternal life.
In order to experience God’s forgiveness, humans must respond to the call of God’s Spirit with repentance and faith in Christ. (See Acts 2:37–39.)
The word repent means literally “to turn around.” The message is clear: If we would receive God’s forgiveness and enter into His eternal family, we must turn from our sin, acknowledge that Christ has paid the ultimate penalty for our sins, and accept God’s forgiveness and gift of eternal life—all of this at the urging and guiding of the Holy Spirit.
The moment we do this, we experience the warm embrace of our heavenly Father. The distance is gone. To use John’s words, we are now walking in the light, having fellowship with God. “And the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:7).
Before we go further, let’s clarify the meaning of the word forgiveness. The key ideas in the biblical languages are to cover, to take away, to pardon, and to be gracious to. The most common of these is the idea of taking away one’s sins. For example, the psalmist says, “He has removed our sins as far from us as the east is from the west” (Psalm 103:12). Thus, God’s forgiveness is relieving the person from God’s judgment—from the penalty due the sinner.
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