Your experiences may have left you with a sense of despair and hopelessness – dreams lost; relationships damaged; your self-esteem trashed. Does it feel as though God has disappeared? Or that there is no hope left for you? Spend some time on this journey and discover the comfort and hope that the Scriptures offer to you.
Introduction and Chapter 1: When We Despair Without Answers
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Understanding where anger is coming from in our lives is helpful. There is usually a deep-rooted hurt that is beneath anger. In the case of the Veteran in my office, he shared traumatic events from his childhood and from his time in Iraq. When we experience a traumatic event, anger is a common feature of a survivor’s response to trauma because it is a core component of the survival response in humans. Anger helps people cope with life’s adversities by providing us with increased energy to persist in the face of obstacles.
Recognizing that anger is a natural, normal, and honorable response to injustice, mean-spiritedness, and wrongdoing is important. The Veteran’s wife, Kristina, mentioned in the introduction to this booklet had grown up in a home where anger was not openly expressed. Maybe you can relate to some of the following words of frustration expressed by this young wife in relation to her husband’s hurtful behavior.
Anger and resentment toward ourselves and others can destroy our health and the peace of those around us. Acknowledging the deep-rooted hurts we have experienced, realizing that we cannot likely right the wrongs that were done, and releasing the bitterness in our lives into the hands of God are essential to our well-being.
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