In humiliation, I discovered a more accurate focus for my anger. Satan. Satan was the one who started this whole mess. Disease and death, deformities and catastrophes of nature. He was the one who, because of pride, brought on himself—us included—every horror of the curse.
Dr. Allender and Dr. Longman, in their book The Cry of the Soul, state,
Pondering the character of God does not pacify anger; it deepens it. Our struggle is never that we are too angry, but that we are never angry enough. Our anger is always pitifully small when it is focused against a person or object; it is meant to be turned against all evil and all sin—beginning first with our own failure of love.4
Anger like this gave birth to Mothers Against Drunk Driving. Help For Victims of Violent Crimes. Just Say No. Child Help. Battered Wives Anonymous. These are just a sampling of how people used their anger to inspire entire movements that have pushed back darkness and brought light and awareness to our society.
I’ll never forget several years ago visiting Auschwitz and Birkenau, the dreadful Nazi death camps of World War II where millions of Jews, Poles, and others were exterminated. I sat by the train station where men, women, and children, crammed into box cars, had been emptied out onto the ice and dirt to face growling dogs and guards. Children were gun-butted one way, their mothers herded the other. Men were separated into groups of the old and the young. But virtually all of them ended up in one place—the incinerator, which is now crumbled and overgrown at the far end of the railroad tracks.
My husband picked up a piece of rusted barbed wire. We stared at it, quietly considering the evil that fueled the gas chambers. When we lowered our heads to pray, all I could think of was my disgust for the Devil and his hoards, as well as the words from Psalm 139:21-22:
Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD,
and abhor those who rise up against you?
I have nothing but hatred for them;
I count them my enemies.
Thank God, he invades our despair and elbows us out of our complacency. And what of those who remain arrogant and unwilling to focus their anger against its rightful target? Will they taste the wrath and judgment of God?
God promised to make the arrogant drink a foaming cup of his wrath, a reflection of God’s furious hatred of sin. But the one who drank this bitter, foaming cup of wrath was Jesus. It is beyond our comprehension—the perfect Adam, adored and loved by the Father, was also despised by the Father…consequently, we are promised that we will never bear the staggering weight of his fury. It has already been poured out on the perfect human being—the glorious Son.5
It’s enough to make even the most arrogant individual start moving in the right spiritual direction.
Thank God for certain kinds of anger.
Which reminds me. I saw Greg Ericks the other day. His soul seemed…settled. Greg told me he and his former wife are working together on a new diet for Ryan. A high fat, cholesterol-laden diet including extra dollops of butter and whipped cream. Hopefully, Ryan will fall in among the success stories of other children whose seizures have been dramatically curtailed. But it’s not an easy routine. Ryan’s mother and Greg are working on a schedule, taking shifts in the hospital, carpooling him back and forth from the clinic, shopping for special foods and preparing specific meals. I’m praying. I’m hoping. And I’m pulling for the Ericks family.
But if the sometimes-strange will of God does not include reprieve for Ryan and his seizures, if the specialized diet does not work, Greg will carry on. If he and Ryan’s mother do not get back together, life will move forward. Greg’s tumultuous emotions will give energy and shape to helping other families like his. He will continue to work hard to see that other parents of children like Ryan are forewarned. He’ll fashion support networks and respite care, even full-scale retreats for moms and dads. He’ll campaign to open the doors of churches to children who struggle with limitations. He’ll bang doors, pray kneeling, raise money, dial phones, counsel couples, and keep moving.
And at night—especially Sunday nights—after he returns home late from dropping off Ryan, he’ll head for the fridge, click on the TV, watch some junk, and then hit the sack. Maybe he’ll slump on the edge of his mattress and listen for a moment to the silence of his apartment. He’ll flick on the lamp and reach for his Bible before retiring.
If I were to guess, he will turn to the Psalms.
THE PSALMS: A FABRIC OF FEELINGS
Emotions are one of the least reliable yet most influential forces in our lives. One day we are hopeful; the next, we hate. Despair at one time; delight, the other. Emotions are the surging, restless tides that keep ebbing and flowing, drawing us up, then pushing us down. The Psalms are a gyroscope, keeping moving things level, like a ship held steady in turbulent seas. This is why the Psalms often repeat the admonition to “look to the LORD and his strength; seek his face always. Remember the wonders he has done, his miracles, and the judgments he pronounced” (Psalm 105:4-5). To remember the strength of the Lord is to set the gyroscope spinning.
To remember is to stabilize.
It’s another way of saying: Never doubt in the darkness what you once believed in the light. When hardship settles in to stay, dark and brooding skepticism surges over us in a tide of doubt and fear. The only sure dike against a flood of feelings is memory. We must recall sunnier times when we drove deep the pilings of God’s goodness and felt our moorings of trust hold ground. Times when we lived on his blessings, knew his favor, were grateful for his gifts, and felt the flesh and blood of his everlasting arms underneath us. This is what all forty-five verses of Psalm 105 call us to do:
He allowed no one to oppress [his anointed]…
The LORD made his people very fruitful…
He brought out Israel, laden with silver and gold…
He spread out a cloud as a covering,
and a fire to give light at night…
[he] satisfied them with the bread of heaven.
He opened the rock, and water gushed out…
For he remembered his holy promise
given to his servant Abraham…
Praise the Lord.
(Psalm 105:14, 24, 37, 39, 40-42, 45)
Remember, remember, and remember again.
The Psalms also point us to the future, encouraging us to hold on, hold on, for heaven is just around the corner. Passionate feelings—especially those kindled in suffering—remind us that we will never truly be at peace until heaven breaks on the horizon. Fanny Crosby knew this. She suffered much as a blind person living in the nineteenth century, and found solace in the book of Psalms. Alone and vulnerable, she took special comfort in Psalm 27:4-5:
One thing I ask of the LORD,
this is what I seek:
That I may dwell in the house of the LORD
all the days of my life,
to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD
and to seek him in his temple.
For in the day of trouble
he will keep me safe in his dwelling;
he will hide me in the shelter of his tabernacle
and set me high upon a rock.
Miss Crosby realized her affliction exposed her to powerful emotions that, if untempered, could sway her faith. When she leaned on the Psalms, she found them to be a wellspring of inspiration, and they provided the basis for many of her 6,000 hymns. Psalm 27 was, in fact, the inspiration for:
He hideth my soul in the cleft of the rock
That shadows a dry, thirsty land;
He hideth my life in the depths of His love,
And covers me there with His hand
And covers me there with His hand.
When clothed in His brightness transported I rise,
To meet Him in clouds of the sky,
His perfect salvation, His wonderful love,
I’ll shout with the millions on high.6
Between the past and the future, the Psalms provide comfort in our present circumstances. As we travel the path of
suffering and journey through “the valley of the shadow of death,” which one of us—even in mild suffering, perhaps sitting in a dentist’s chair waiting for the Novocain to take affect—hasn’t turned to this old favorite, softly reciting lines memorized to quiet our nerves and force peace into our hearts?
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,
he restores my soul.
He guides me in paths of righteousness
for his name’s sake.
Even though I walk
through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.
(Psalm 23:1-4)
The Psalms even serve as a confessional. Suffering will occasionally have us trespassing the “Danger Ahead” barrier and treading on the thin ice of seething spite against God, angrily taunting him. But then we realize that, were it not for Christ, we’d fall from grace and drown. We stop. Clamp our hands over our mouths. Drop to our knees. The Psalms then give voice to our repentance:
Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion
blot out my transgressions.
Wash away all my iniquity
and cleanse me from my sin.
For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is always before me.
Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight,
so that you are proved right when you speak
and justified when you judge…
Surely you desire truth in the inner parts.
(Psalm 51:1-4,6)
A WINDOW INTO OUR SOUL
In 1951 a child was born to a drunken mother.7 The woman’s husband was not the father. Could the father be a man at the Naval Officer’s Club? Or someone else near the military base? The child never knew for sure. All she knew was her mother’s temper, the empty bottles, and the man they lived with whom she called Daddy.
Safe haven was often found at Uncle Bob’s and Aunt Edith’s. Theirs was a real home where little Glenda could play “hospital” with neighbor friends and scar up the driveway with hopscotch chalk. A home where she could spend long, unmolested moments and stare into a mirror at the gaping space where two front teeth should be. Teeth scattered somewhere on the floor back at her house after the savage beating.
When Glenda was five she made her last visit to Uncle Bob’s. Harsh words were exchanged between her uncle and her father. It was forever back to his four-room house built near the docks for shipyard workers. A little house heated by an oil-burning stove in the living room. Her mother, who always seemed to be recovering from a drinking binge, gave orders that Glenda’s sister, then fifteen, should move to the front room to sleep with her. Glenda, the littlest, was to sleep in the back room with her daddy. Mother made the decisions. Everyone followed.
The child heard the patter of rain at night. It made her sad. She could hear the muffle of drunken snores through the wall. But she would freeze when she heard the sigh of her father lying next to her, a man whose needs had not been met for years, sleeping with a little girl, not his own, fighting off anger from long days of hard work and an alcoholic wife. The floor boards around the oil stove creaked. So did the boards beneath the child’s bed.
In that little room, Glenda’s innocence was mauled over and over again. The knowledge that there was nowhere to go, no one to tell, horrified her. She wanted to run, but he held her down; she wanted to scream, but he told her to be quiet. So over the years, in that desolate bed, with tears running back into her ears and her father asleep at her side, the little girl stared at the ceiling and prayed. Surely, God would answer her prayers if only she would be good. She tried to be ever so good.
Yet everything was terribly bad.
The best change came when she turned twelve years old. Her father moved into the front room, her mother returned to the living room couch, and Glenda slept alone. Perhaps puberty and the fear of another unwanted baby in the house prompted the switch. Glenda did not understand at the time, but God was at work.
It was hard to see, though. The years faded away, but the bruises were always fresh. High school friends stayed cool and aloof. Little wonder. Glenda never invited classmates over to her house. She was embarrassed by the drunkenness, the cursing, and the filth. For at least a year, Glenda would hide in corners of restrooms, or her backyard, and sit, rocking back and forth with a pack of razor blades. Nothing happened, although she derived morbid pleasure in the possibilities.
“I do not remember,” Glenda says, “ever feeling that I deserved a different home or different parents or a different life. Yes, I longed for them, especially for a mother who would love me. But I never believed that I had a right to them. I recognized early that there are few disappointments for the little girl who expects nothing.”
Years marched on. Nursing school provided Glenda’s first reprieve. A solace. A shelter. Still, loneliness knocked constantly on the door of her dorm. One Friday night as she was walking through the hospital lobby on her way back to her room, a brochure on a table caught her eye. Good thing. The front read, “God’s Four Steps to Salvation.” It was the night she had intended to collapse into bed, open the Ziploc bag of pills she’d been saving, and disappear permanently. She closed her bedroom door behind her. Instead of reaching for the bag, she opened the tract. Before the night was through, Glenda had slid to the floor by her bed to pray. She knelt down in grave clothes, then stood up in robes of righteousness. Christ’s righteousness.
Saturday dawned, a bright, cold day. Glenda took the bus into town to buy a Bible. God’s words danced on the pages, every verse jumping alive with meaning. She had a relationship—a real, live relationship with God. Breathing. Pulsating. Exploding with joy. But one thing clouded it. Over the months, even years, after she was married with children of her own, as Glenda drew closer to God, her past appeared blacker.
New feelings of resentment surfaced. How could my parents have done those horrible things to me? she thought. I was just a little girl. Why didn’t they let me be a little girl? I was beaten, stripped, molested, cursed, screamed at, kicked, and hated when all I ever wanted was love. I would have done anything for their love. And now I hate them. I can’t help it.
Her anger was revealing something foul inside her heart. Psalm 119:165 spoke softly…
Great peace have they who love thy law:
and nothing shall offend them, (KJV)
Incredulous! God could really take away my offense? Glenda wondered. My murderous hatred? “Nothing shall offend” the verse answered. The two lines weren’t long enough to be considered a spear or a javelin. Not even an arrow piercing her heart. The short verse was a tiny dart, but God’s aim was impeccable—it pinpricked the hot balloon of anger Glenda had been inflating all those years.
“Oh God,” Glenda prayed, “if it displeases you for me to be offended, then somehow take it from me. I’m burning up with hatred and I can’t survive this way. Tear out the resentment. I long to be yours completely. I want to forgive those who have offended me just as you forgave me all my offenses. Now help me, Father, for Jesus’ sake.”
Some would think Glenda’s offense should be aimed against God rather than her parents. Stripped? Molested? Cursed? A child doesn’t have the strength to push away a lewd man ruled by urges. But God does. A little girl cannot outrun a drunken parent swinging a belt. A child cannot hold up a shield big or thick enough to ward off words that cut deep into her psyche. Where was God? Why not take offense at him?
What answers could possibly atone for such horrific treatment? “It would be better for [a man] to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around his neck than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin,” says God himself (Luke 17:2)
. Fine: wicked men will one day face the anger of a righteous Judge, but what about now?
We want answers now. But even if we know why, will it satisfy? We might ask, “Where was God? Was it his fault?” and be assured that although he is sovereign, it was not his fault. Or, “Was it an assault from the Enemy?” and find that, yes, it possibly was. Or we may press further, “Is it the consequence of living in a fallen, wicked world, and not the direct personal assault of either the Devil or God?” and learn that, more than likely, it is. Back to square one: do such answers satisfy? Probably not.
Glenda, with God’s help, found the only answer that satisfied—an answer that reached into the heart where it hurt. Her anger helped show her need. Her anger helped move her in the right direction.
She realized her seething hatred was just as heinous, just as nauseating as the sins committed against her. She was no better than her parents. As surely as her father thrust himself on her, she had in her imagination, thrust a knife, with hot fury, into his chest. Glenda could have easily been the one flinging curses and spitting hatred, torturing and nailing God to his cross. In fact, in acknowledging her sin, she was. The memory of spit on her seven-year-old face must have paled in comparison to the spit on her Savior. Glenda discovered, as few believers do, the depth of God’s love in that “while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).
“In order to suffer without dwelling on our own affliction,” Thomas Merton once contemplated, “we must think about a greater affliction, and turn to Christ on the cross. In order to suffer without hate, we must drive out bitterness from our heart by loving Jesus. In order to suffer without hope of compensation, we should find all our peace in the conviction of our union with Jesus. These things are not a matter of ascetic technique but of simple faith.”8
When God Weeps Page 17