How Anger Actually Makes Us Feel We Are Unlovable
If I look back in my life at times when I felt unlovable, anger was almost always present. Honestly, I’m not sure I could say that I wore unlovable as my identity, but there were situations in my life where I felt unlovable for a time.
I was raised in a family where I was loved and shown healthy love. Of course, like any of our lives, my family life wasn’t perfect, but it was very good. Maybe the background and upbringing of love kept me from ever truly clinging to the identity of unlovable.
However, as I shared in my past blog posts, Faith in Jesus is our Victory over Our Failure and How I Overcame The Unforgiven Label And Embraced Forgiven As My Identity, the Failure and Unforgiven labels did cling to me.
Identifying with our failures and identifying ourselves as unforgiven directly impacts our feelings and beliefs that we may be unlovable. Cozying up with any unhealthy feelings and beliefs breeds more and more unhealthy feelings and beliefs. So, the more we feel or believe that we are unlovable, the more unlovable we become.
Our Actions Mirror Our Thoughts And Beliefs
Jesus said, “Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.” (Matthew 12:34). And wise old Solomon said, “Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.” (Proverbs 4:23) Ultimately, what we carry with us on the inside, eventually is coming out in our words or our actions.
For me, the discouragement of failure and struggling with embracing God’s forgiveness for the life I once lived caused me to feel and act angry. Life had not turned out like I thought. My childhood hopes and dreams were dashed by my own poor choices. In other words, I damaged my own life and brought failure on myself which caused a cycle of personal anger at the injustice of life. Even when much of the problems I faced were based on my own unhealthy, unwise choices that I made.
We all will face the pains of damaged hopes and dreams and unmet expectations in our lives. Equally, we all will get the same opportunity of choice in how we cope. When we are disillusioned by life and it makes us mad, we often take it out on others and then we ourselves feel unlovable. It is a vicious cycle until we can see the root of our problem.
Reacting Out of Anger And Living Out Unlovable
When I think of this vicious cycle of living disillusioned by life, feeling disappointed and angry, and then responding to others out of that anger, Queen Vashti comes to mind. Esther 1 gives us glimpses of her story. Hers is a story of a woman who acted out of indignation and anger.
Reading Esther 1, I felt that life had not gone exactly how Queen Vashti hoped or wanted. Her dreams of reigning as queen surely fell short. Her husband, the king spent seven days partying with his cohorts and bragging about his possessions. He celebrated them rather than his beautiful queen. Esther 1:10 says, “On the seventh day, when the king’s heart was merry with wine, he commanded” his servants to bring his queen and her crown, i.e. his trophy wife before him. He wanted to show her off and parade her in front of his drunk friends to say, Look what I have.
The king stroked his own pride. Queen Vashti was the prize. He did not call her because he wanted to be with her. It wasn’t her presence and heart he desired. He desired his trophy. Surely, she felt like an object and unloved, not a treasured wife. She reacted with anger and lived out unlovable.
Queen Vashti refused to come. She rejected the king and he rejected her. She was removed from her position as queen and rejected by her husband as wife.
Queen Vashti’s story reminds us that when we act out of our disappointments and failures, we project anger and hurt on others. Then they respond to us in ways that further instill our feeling and belief that we are unlovable.
Two Choices Before Us:
1. Will we live angry and bitter?
2. Or will we seek Jesus’ redemption for the messes we made along the way?
I truly believe that most Christians don’t intentionally choose anger and bitterness over Jesus redeeming their messes. But instead, I think we often view it as spilt milk or too much water under the bridge. It’s this mentality of “It is what it is and there is no changing it.” And yes, many times we are dealing with “what’s done is done” issues.
Another problem that often affects us is that we don’t really know the root cause of our anger, and if we do, we don’t want to look at where we messed up. Personal reflection of painful situations and even, self-inflicted wounds never feels good initially.
So, we avoid. We numb. We medicate or dull our senses rather than face the heart of our hurts that keep us feeling angry and unloveable.
Soul Searching Feelings of Unlovable and Anger
I write today to stir you to search your heart for the root cause of our feelings of unlovable and anger . We can’t change what we ignore or won’t acknowledge. We can’t fix a problem without discovering its root or true source.
1) Consider, think through, and ask Jesus to help your answer these question:
Do you ever feel unlovable?
Do you struggle believing that you are unlovable?
2) If you answered yes to either question, consider the questions below and think through how much anger is related to your feeling unlovable. Ask Jesus to help you work through this with humility and sincerity.
Do you react to certain things with anger?
What situations make you the angriest?
How much does your own anger have to do with you feeling unloveable?
3) Write down your answers to the questions above as a way to take another step toward change. Then take every detail that you discover to Jesus. Ask Him to help you see the heart of feelings of anger or unloveable for what they are and where they come from.
4) Once you discover the root cause of any anger or feelings that you are unlovable, take those roots to Jesus and ask Him to redeem every detail.
Life is too short!
Dear sister, in Christ, Life is too short to live angry and buying into the lie that we are unlovable. You are LOVED. Fully embrace God’s love and acceptance. Take all your pain, failures, and mistakes to Jesus and trust Him to redeem every detail of your life that you can live free and fully loved! His redemption may not change every consequence of past actions or choices, but His redemption changes us, how we view the past, and how we respond in our present and future.
