Being Candid about Road Rage

Lately, I've been on an "Unplanned-Changes-on-the-Journey-of-Life" kick as I've posted my blogs. Today, though, I want to share a different aspect about the same thing. But please, bear with me. I've already said all there's to be said about unexpected turns, but I want to be completely honest with you about how we handle the unexpected; about how I've handled it. 

As I've made clear, I'm traveling a different road than I thought I'd be on. But would you believe, for all my amazing advice I've shared, I haven't handled it well at all! In fact, I want to kind of highlight the last...oh, say, month. Actually, I believe it goes further back than that even. I'm actually fairly sure it goes back to the end of June. Anyways, here we go.

So, at the end of June I began a six week stint of helping out a Bible camp. An amazing place full of wonderful, encouraging people. It's a good place to be, right? A great place to minister! And I knew this because, last summer, I experienced that. I grew in my walk with God, I visibly impacted kids for Christ and it was just awesome. But this summer was different. I didn't really tell many people, but the whole six weeks I didn't always feel like I was supposed to be there. That's all I'm going to say about that, because I don't know if it was because I was not a great point spiritually or what and I do know that God taught me through it. But I'm beginning to suspect, as I look back, that it had just a little something to do with being done at Bible School and having to step out into "The Real World" when camp was over.

 



You see, until last week, I didn't realize that I was very angry. I can sort of pinpoint the beginnings of this anger to sometime during the course of my final semester at school. I remember getting irritated so easily but instead of just that normal inner frustration, the frustration was accompanied by heat. Inner heat - I'd never experienced that. Fast forward to last week when I became aware of it and started to connect the dots (because I recognized the intense emotions while I was at school, but I hadn't associated them with everything I'd been feeling over the summer). I'm laying there on my bed one morning, not wanting to be productive at all and I found myself just bawling for the second day in a row (now, that's weird even for me, an emotional person). So I just started trying to find the root of my lack of motivation, my desire to be alone all the time, and the fact that I wanted absolutely nothing to do with God. When I came up with the word "anger," I had to then ask myself, "Who am I angry at?" And two people came to mind. I was angry with myself for having not taken steps that I could have taken so that I might be somewhere different in my life. And I was angry with God because He was allowing me to be where I didn't want to be. And this is the whole point of today's post.

I know I talked a big talk about how we should go with God's changes, realizing they're for the better. But I want you to know that I recognize that it's not as easy as hitting the turn signal. That, being the emotional, intellectual and willful beings we are, we struggle when things don't go the way we planned. And all of us react some way. Kudos to those who react in a way that glorifies God; that is awesome. But I know that most people go through a period of denial. I don't know that my response to God's will could especially be labeled "Denial," because I would call it a Temper Tantrum or Road Rage, even. And I share this with you so you realize I am human, too, and I did not follow my own advice. Instead of trust, there was a huge amount of doubt, fear, anger and bitterness towards God for the direction my life is taking.

Now, I'm aware that this would be an awful place to end this blog, but don't worry, I'm not going to. I just want to encourage those of you who are facing painful changes in your lives. Don't get hung up by the negative reaction you may have had. Acknowledge it's there and then take steps towards God. He's awesome about supporting us when we're struggling and wanting to help us. He wants to teach us through the difficulties. And I promise that, if you're going it with God, things will get better in time. It'll get easier to accept where He has you and to start looking for what He wants to teach you. Just take it one mile (or day) at a time :)