Anger with the Almighty

            One of the subjects and trains of thought I have been following for a long time is that of Anger with, and/or at God. When I first got really sick, as in I admitted it. God had not talked with me for a long time. I even sat in more silence then before to try and hear the voice of the creator to know that I was loved, especially when I could not love myself.  But still the profound silence remained. And not knowing what to do with that fact I became even more depressed crying “my God, my God why have you left me?”

            Well I know that I’m not alone in that anger and frustration with God. Heck even God in the person of Jesus prayed for the cup to pass to someone else. The prophets crying out with Gods displeasure often where going on gut and on strings of faith. I ‘caught’ somewhere along the line that it was not acceptable to be angry with God, I have no clue where though. But in a bible study the pastor who was acting as facilitator said ‘look to the psalms, lots of anger there. But likewise lots of hope, dreaming and praying’. Or as I like to think, nothing comes out of or exists in a vacuumed. As sweet is to sour the universe must hold a balance with itself.  So if there is love there need to be the balance, I often wonder if God is sometimes frustrated with us in our humanness.  Likewise as I was speaking to a colleague of mine at work today, if we are created to be in relationship with God in the image of human relationship, anger is normal.

            However I think the anger is more often a convenient mask for disappointment and frustration. I in my work within the community work with a young women and her family. She finally said yes to a residential treatment, where she could get the best help and go on trips to Dorney Park if she earned it. The facility was clean and bright, with trees all around. More like a retreat center then a residential program for youths with serious mental health issues. We got onto the property and 20 feet from the door she stopped. We played this game for three hours. Eventually I left with the mother after having the young women signed over to the facility.  As we where leaving she still had not entered.

As I found out latter that afternoon, as I celebrated the young women getting to the property, I found that in her refusal the child welfare branch that was involved took her to a shelter because they felt that residential needed to 100% voluntary.  I ran through a gambit of feelings, anger, frustration, disgust, but ultimately ended up on disappointed. I think the most extreme type of anger. The knowledge that the services are there but can not be accessed because of systems, money and personal choice. Freewill gives us this last one and I think that is where God often becomes sad, that we never fully experience all that is offered to us to succeed.

            For me disappointment and anger, also lead to distrust. But in the course of my own recovery and Systematic Theology (yes of all places) I figured out and accepted “our no to God, can NEVER overwhelm God’s yes to us”. So the anger and related feelings, might just be our rebellion to the extreme emotional feelings of what that complete yes from God is.