Hope in a Rage

by Alecia Klauk
(Chapin, SC)

Hope comes in many different forms. Sometimes it's quiet and serene. Other times it's exuberant and expressive. For me lately, it's taken yet another form.

Anger.

Sounds wrong, doesn't it? We don't typically associate anger with hope. But God's been teaching me a new lesson lately, and I wonder if He hasn't revealed something new.

A handful of weeks ago, my oldest daughter had to have three teeth pulled. She's used to such things, having had handfuls of surgeries in her life. We really didn't think it would be a big deal, and for her, it wasn't. She weathered it fine, but for me, it was difficult.

I don't handle medical things well anyway. I never have. My husband has that particular strength honed quite well. He's good at it. I'm not.

It's so hard to deal with the vulnerability that necessarily results from having to trust another person with your child's well being, especially when you know you have no choice. It feels powerless.

And it's complicated by the fact that your child needs you to be strong and model courage for them. If I'm dying inside, I still need to put on a good face for them. It's just part of the whole parental package.

Well, we got through that one. I was scathed a bit. I was shaken, angry, even a little sad, sure, but I had to let it go. It wasn't a huge deal.

My husband graciously took over completely, much to my relief, and we just moved on. We took a fantastic mission trip as a family and returned on a great spiritual high point of connection and service.

Within a few days, my other daughter developed a staph infection. Of all the medical issues we've seen with five kids, this was a first. We presume she picked it up while we were working on a job site while on our trip. The mark on her arm was growing by the hour at one point, and the medical attention to it was swift and thorough. Scary.

My heart during that time was vacillating somewhere between holding it together superficially and a total melt down. I know that sounds weak, and I honestly hate to admit that. But I hate medical stuff. Waiting for doctors, being forced to jump through hoops that make little sense to me, knowing I have very little control but feeling desperate to have whatever is wrong fixed yesterday.

It's just all so hard for me. And it began to tap some deep reserves of anger. I tried very hard to hold all that in, but it kept leaking. I was angry, and it was getting worse. I wasn't sure what to do with it, but I felt little freedom to express it. So I just tried to shove it and keep putting one foot in front of the other.

I admit that I've never been good at the medical stuff, but I also think that the whole thing is complicated by all of the surgeries we went through in the morning hours of my parenthood. She's done beautifully, but the memory leaves an indelible impression. I'm affected by the years of requirement.

There's anger just lurking around, kept at bay, but never really gone. It just kind of waits.

Ok, so we had the teeth extraction and the staph infection, and all of it made more difficult by adding the complication of a difficult office staff. Throw in long hours waiting to only receive varying opinions by different docs, incomplete instruction, add a sprinkle of insurance complication just for good measure, and you begin to get the picture.

More anger ...

In that context, my youngest, my baby boy, had to have surgery. He was born with his tongue attached too far forward, a fact we thought not to be a problem until we discovered the extensive dental work he needed. That surgery was the same week as the staph infection.

In addition to the obvious, I also knew that in walking him through each progressive pre-op procedure, I'd in effect be walking the stations of the passion of my 7th child. We had to return to the place I had lost her just over a year ago, and I had not been in that series of rooms since that horrible day. I knew it would be hard. Very, very hard.

Pain, much pain, but also a bit more anger here ...

I hated the thought of another round of doctors and nurses and the hospital and insurance and and and ...

My son had little idea of what would happen, but he seemed to tolerate the opening act ok. The waiting for us was long and hard. After the surgery, he looked like he'd been a few rounds in the ring with Rocky. It was rough. Successful but rough. And his recovery was slow and difficult.

Sitting in the emergency room the next morning for what I would find out later to be a check for menigitis, I finally felt free to let the anger go. I don't mean let it go in the pretty way. I guess it wasn't really "let it go;" it was more let it out. I was finally just furious. I couldn't even really get a full handle on the why or who, but I knew my head was going to explode if I tried to keep one more drop of it inside.

So, I did what every good Christian does in that moment. I tried really hard to shut up! And it worked externally. I didn't blow it with anybody. My leaking hostilities did occasionally take some aim at my Beloved man, but he was full of grace for me.

I think where I ended up, which is the round-about point of this rambling, is a place where I can admit that sometimes the world just stinks and I hate it. That's the deepest explanation for my anger and one that, pushed hard enough for long enough, I felt permission to express.

I know that flies in the face of being full of hope and joy and peace. I know it sounds incongruous to find hope and joy and peace in anger. I can feel your furrowed brow from here.

But for me, it makes sense. The times in my life when I've really, honestly not known if I would make it or not are not the times when I gave voice to anger and frustration, confusion and pain. It's the times when I haven't. When I've been afraid to feel, terrified to admit, paralyzed to express: that's when I feel crazy.

But to just give voice to the inner turmoil: that is where freedom lies. I will admit that there are times when it feels more like the relief after a particularly long battle not to vomit is lost (sorry if you were eating, but there's no greater analogy for that feeling) rather than a skipping through the daises, everything's fine euphoria. But relief is relief when you're in need of it. The form is meaningless compared to the function.

So to finally get to that breaking point and be able to say that I hate the fall and its results actually gives me the things I need: the fruit of the Spirit. Love, joy, peace, and on. There is great peace in a serene mind, and when we are holding on to our fraying emotions with a white knuckle grip, there is no peace.

We need relief, and in an odd way, we may find relief in the very thing we are afraid of: expression, admitting, copping to our fragmented weakness when things are hard.

I think we all spend a lot of time trying to look the part: to keep it together, to handle things well, to be emotionally well groomed. There's a lot of energy devoted to that for us, isn't there?

But I think we are invited to a more honest expression, a truer reality. We are invited by the King of the Universe, who knows it all anyway, to just say: "Daddy, help!" That's all we can even utter at times, and that's all He needs to swoop in. When I can admit my inability to handle it, that's when He says He can. I find my hope right there.

So these last few weeks have been pretty hard. I've been tired for days, but I am now beginning to catch my breath. I know that much of that recovery has come through the admission of my own lack in the process. I lack it all on my own! Without my Jesus, I've got nothing.

And even He allowed Himself to be angry at times. Look at the famous scene when He knocked heads together over the supermarket swap in the temple. We love to sanitize His response and fool ourselves into thinking it was something other than it was. But if you study the original language, He was MAD! And because He remained sinless, I know I can be mad, too.

I need to be careful about what I am mad about. I need to be sure that my emotions are in line with His: love what He loves, hate what He hates, cry over what pains His heart, and yes, get angry over what angers Him. But when I am in submission to His heart, then I can be mad and trust Him to hold me in it.

God's not turned off by my anger. I think He understands it. Sin and its effects are legitimate reasons for sadness and anger. He knows what I'm feeling and can handle my expression of it.

I needed to tell Jesus that I hate what sin has done: namely right now, made bodies that aren't perfect. I needed to weep and admit that I wish it was all ok. I also even needed to scream my confusion, frustration, and doubt so that He could fill me with acceptance, patience, and faith.

That's what He did, what He does. As I allowed myself to feel, I felt my Lord flow into the wounded places of my heart and apply a healing balm. The Great Physician eased my frustration with doctors! Poetic, isn't He?

And while I may be emotionally fatigued, I remain hopeful. I'd much rather have a deep and abiding hope fed by an authentic expression rather than a polished platitude.

I want real fruit, not fake flowers. I'm after what's real in my life, when it's pretty and when it's not. So I encourage us all to risk a bit more realism with our Regal and Loving King. I know I am living with a greater sense of awareness of determination to give Him my whole heart, all the time, no matter its condition.

He knows me. He wants me. He gets me. He loves me. He comforts me. He heals me. He sees me. He loves me more.

And I can feel all those truths much more when I am honest. I will not fear that expression, but embrace it as the vehicle to hope that it truly is. May we all know Him more fully as we are more fully known.