Anger

The years 2018 and 2019 were difficult for me to process. And if you noticed, I didn’t post many blog writings or share much on social media.  In fact, if you had been around me, I took a step back from people.

Why? “Anger.”

Yup, and it’s humbling to publicly admit.

I am a process oriented, intuitive writer who shares about how I interact with the world around me and my walk with God. But everything I wrote during those years reflected my anger. My editor (also known as Mr. Small Town) read through what I was writing. When he was done reading he announced, “You can’t post this. It’s too angry and offensive.” He was right. I couldn’t post it. Anger isn’t the “BRAND” of Small Town Girl Becky Graham’s blog!!!  If I posted what I was writing, how would my readers respond?

So I didn’t write. In fact I didn’t do much interacting during this time. I stopped going to places where people knew me as fun loving and engaging Becky. I didn’t want to be around them and if I did, all I wanted to do was to spew anger on them and tell them the truth about what I thought about them in cutting jabs! I didn’t want to talk with anyone and I didn’t want anyone to talk with me.

People grew concerned. People started asking me questions. People started asking Mr. Small Town questions. “What’s wrong with Becky?” He didn’t have any answers. I didn’t have any answers. All I knew was that I wasn’t angry with or at God. I didn’t walk away from God. But the anger was so powerful that I became numb and couldn’t even tolerate being around people. And I couldn’t write. I was not ready to process everything that was underneath the anger; I didn’t even know what had made me so angry.

The beautiful thing during this time was Mr. Small Town. He didn’t quite understand what was going on with me. But he just walked beside me supporting me, nudging me, and encouraging me. He didn’t try to fix me.

Eventually we started attending a large church where I felt safe to attend. One Saturday night I decided to stay home and only Mr. Small Town and our son attended. The guest speaker was Steven Furtick. When Mr. Small Town and our son arrived home they couldn’t stop talking about the speaker’s message. Mr. Small Town walked over to me and wrapped me up in his arms. He told me about the message, “It’s okay to be right where you are. You’re in the middle of something and God’s right there with you. And so are we.”

The speaker’s message was about how God is right there with us even when we don’t know what is going on inside of us. He relayed that God is okay with us being in the numbing part of life where we don’t always understand. It was okay not to have the answers and it was okay to just be where I was.

Friends, I can’t tell you how much peace flooded my soul. God, through the speaker’s message, gave me permission to be at the place of no answers, no movement, and no comments. I didn’t have to hurry up and fix my anger problem. I didn’t need to move forward in conquering it. I was free just knowing I could just be.

Are you in the middle of something that you just don’t understand? Rest assured because even though you don’t understand it, God does.

Come back next week and I’ll share more of my anger journey with you and how God started to peel back the layers to see what was really going on underneath all of the anger. I promise, it’s a story you don’t want to miss.

Blessings to you my dear friends,

The Small Town Girl

Click on the link below to watch the video of Steve Furtick’s message titled, “In the Middle” for the 20th anniversary of the Church by the Glades. (He starts speaking at minute 5:30 of the video)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2gZg9DJMcE