Anger

Anger, it seems, it like a hard candy shell, only not quite so sweet. 

It protects the heart from all that wants to assault what lies underneath. 

It can become impenetrable over time. 

It’s easy to hang on to and hard to let go of. 

Anger is what protects my heart from grief, sadness, loss.

               

But in all its protecting, anger is also preventing my heart of stone from being changed into a heart of flesh. 

It is preventing God’s work in me. 

It is preventing the refiner’s fire softening and melting all of my hard edges into something lovely and beautiful. 

If left to its own devices, it will harden even more to bitterness and will render me unable to love people, to show compassion, to feel, to see God, to be human.

So I’m breaking the hard shell around my heart; the fragile center is vulnerable and raw and breaks too easily. 

It hurts. 

But I trust that this is the better way.