anger

anger.
fighting.
betrayal.
insensitivities.
do these things ever come up in your relationships?  today i had thoughts of rough times that joe and i went through.  nothing of this sort had yet crossed my mind, probably because we never let things get bad, and didn't hold grudges.  i do have some regrets on things i said in the heat of the moment, making me think a lot about how i react to people and situations now - now that the fact that life can be gone in a flash is so real to me.
I have learned about anger from Miriam Neff and her website.
Anger is not sin, it is a normal emotion.  Jesus felt it and God expressed it.  The question is when and how can we appropriately acknowledge it, address its cause, and figure out how to move forward in a positive way.
I am thankful that anger is normal, because this emotion is coming back to me and I'm sure will come in and out of my life for years to come.  I cannot ignore my anger, and I must acknowledge it and determine at whom and why I am angry.  I must resolve to address my anger in a God honoring way as it is stated in Ephesians 4:26:  "And 'don’t sin by letting anger control you.'  Don't let the sun go down while you are still angry."
I must try to not act or speak until I have had time to do the hard personal work of identifying at whom and why I am angry.  I then need to follow the direction of the Ephesians passage and create a God honoring plan to address the problem.
I am currently working on a spiritual inventory through my Celebrate Recovery step group.  I am pulling out the "whom" and "why" of any resentments I have.  With this process I will not allow myself to ignore my anger, I will work on addressing the problems, and I will figure out how to move forward in a positive way.  This is tough.  I have more anger and resentments than I realize - definitely surrounding both the death of my dad and of my husband, but then also in other areas of my life.
I need to remember that 'fair,' 'just,' and 'right' are not guaranteed here on earth - only in Heaven.
Moving forward will include forgiveness - to do this I need to lean heavily into my faith and I will move forward in my new life with freedom.
Two things to help me move forward are displacement and physical exercise.  I need to continually fill my mind with positives and count my blessings instead of fume... I need to use any adrenaline given by anger in physical ways... Like today, I swept my sidewalk - yeah, me, sweep my sidewalk?  I think one thing good for me after the pea is here will be walking and hopefully jogging.  I have this amazing stroller waiting to be used.  Perhaps I will take a kickboxing class - that has always intrigued me.

Here is a picture of us from August of 2010, hanging out at Gladiolus Days.  Joe was very excited because a couple friends from Winona came and he loved it when people came to St. Charles instead of us always having to go to Winona or Buffalo City.  The shirt I am wearing came from Goodwill, Joe picked it out and bought it for me - and I don't even know where it is now.  It is AC/DC I think - Joe loved it because it was tight and showed cleavage.  I only wore it a couple of times, and that is when he begged me to.  Of course I would wear it then - I loved it when he loved looking at me and showing me off.  Of course he did that no matter what I was wearing (lol), but it was easier when I had this shirt on ;-)  lu & mu so much Joe.

I miss him so much and yes, I am angry that he is gone.