The Journey continues

Though I don't have regrets per se (see earlier blog), I do have to deal with pain, physical and emotional, and anger over certain past events, which may have a lot to do with the pain. Anger can hide in the body of a congenial person, one that generally holds their true emotions hidden from the world. By using a smile and laughter a troubled soul can present a very different picture then the one that is churning deep inside. Often, laughter is a defense mechanism and can even hide the anger from our conscious self.

2010 (C) Shelly Stotts Photography, used by permission

I was reminded of this the other day, listening to Marie Osmond as she talked about her son's suicide on Oprah. The picture her son presented to his family and to the world, one of a smiling, congenial, laughter filled soul, hid a troubled young man who tragically ended his life in despair. I don't know his pain and am not seeking to equate my anger with anything that might have gone on inside of Marie's son, just that often, the face we present to others can hide what is really happening within.

That anger can rear its head when triggered by a comment, actually any reminder no matter the source. Until mid-life hit, I probably wouldn't have recognized my anger as anger, but when life changes occurred, that anger all came boiling up from within in the form of depression and pain, with a certain amount of loneliness and despair. One by one, I've had to look at those events, those heartaches, that caused my anger, allow each to surface and then seek to forgive as I let them go. The most difficult anger to release is the anger over hurts my children have experienced because of the selfishness, or meanness of others. I'm still working on those.

Forgiving and letting go, I've found, is not just a one time event either. Hurts leave wounds and some wounds take a long time to heal. When healed there will be scars. Scars are protective barriers. Reminders can threaten to open old wounds as those scars leave us vulnerable and the anger, pain, and heartache can threaten to consume if not recognized and released. So it requires, to use a Buddhist phrase, being mindful.

2010 (C) Shelly Stotts Photography, used by permission

I can't rest on any past forgiveness either that I might have extended toward myself or another on this journey from the cradle to the grave. I must choose to forgive again, and again, whenever that anger is triggered. I must be mindful of that inner dialog that rises to the surface about past hurt, choose not to dwell on it, not to hold it in, or against another, and let it go, over and over and over. By allowing the soothing waters of forgiveness to continue to wash over the wound, it keeps it from becoming festered, keeps it cleansed. It's not easy and I can't do it alone, especially when the anger feels justified. I need grace to make it.

Maybe that's why when Jesus was asked how many times we should forgive, he said, seventy times seven. Perhaps it not only applies to that one that keeps making choices that hurt us and we need to extend forgiveness repeatedly, but to that which rises up from within when least expected from the past. Is he saying the need to forgive doesn't end, not until the end? I think so.