{"id":226,"date":"2010-11-10T23:23:54","date_gmt":"2010-11-11T04:23:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/phoenixandolivebranch.wordpress.com\/?p=226"},"modified":"2014-07-03T11:29:59","modified_gmt":"2014-07-03T15:29:59","slug":"anger-and-bitterness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/phoenixandolivebranch\/2010\/11\/anger-and-bitterness\/","title":{"rendered":"Anger and bitterness"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"Fierce<\/a><\/p>\n

My friends at No Longer Quivering and I are frequently accused of unforgiveness. The blog Steadfast Daughters<\/a> was deliberately set up to accuse Hillary MacFarland<\/a> and other \u201cQuivering Daughters<\/a>\u201d like myself of holding bitter grudges against our parents and churches for the abuse we suffered. The two most common denunciations we receive, actually, are these:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. \u201cWe\u2019re not all like that. You\u2019re overreacting.\u201d<\/li>\n
  2. \u201cYou\u2019re bitter and angry. You\u2019re just selfish and hate your church. You\u2019re just blaming others for your own bad attitude.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    One of the great misconceptions of my work and that of the writers at No Longer Quivering is that we were merely hurt by abusive people twisting religion (in my case, the Message) to suit their own evil purposes. That is not entirely wrong. Many of us were involved with abusive people who might have been the same with or without religion. But that is not all of the story. Most of the time, we were hurt by good people, people whom we loved, people who broke our hearts with our own best interests in mind. And for me, it was the Message itself that broke my heart.<\/p>\n

    I was not hurt simply by friends or family members misusing the Message. The Message itself hurt me. What William Branham said about women made me wish I had never been born. I went to a relatively good Message church, one that constantly emphasized unconditional love and grace, but it wasn\u2019t enough to counter the words of hatred<\/a> that rained on me from Branham\u2019s own sermons.<\/p>\n

    The emotion I feel most strongly when I think of those I left behind is sorrow. I am sad that they will never know me except through the lens of a rebellious defector. I am sad that I didn\u2019t get to spend more of my life with them. Above all, I am sad that they think I abandoned them, because it was not them I escaped \u2013 it was the Message. I left because I needed to survive. I couldn\u2019t do it in the Message. The Message carved out a little box for me, a box of submission and homemaking, and my heart did not fit in that box. I don\u2019t resent those who taught me the Message \u2013 I resent the Message for separating me from them.<\/p>\n

    The Message tells us that we must avoid being bitter at all costs. My pastor used to tell us, \u201cIf you have a scratch of bitterness in your heart, you\u2019re in danger of missing the Rapture.\u201d We constantly searched our hearts for anything we\u2019d ever held against other people and fought to eradicate those feelings. We practiced a kind of forgiveness that meant the sin itself was erased \u2013 not only did God forget we\u2019d ever sinned, we were to forget others had \u201ctrespassed\u201d against us. We were to die to ourselves so that Christ could reach them through our softened spirits. We were not to be angry, unless we were angry on behalf of the Lord. If someone hurt us, we were to forgive like God forgave: a \u201cdrop of ink in a tub of bleach\u201d \u2013 we were to be so full of love and forgiveness that you couldn\u2019t even find the sin or hurt when you looked into our hearts. I still believe in forgiveness, but not that kind.<\/p>\n

    Forgetting the hurt (or pretending to) only enables the people who hurt us to keep doing it. They never face the consequences of their actions. They know we\u2019ll keep taking it, so they keep dishing it. The more they hurt us, the more it wears away our energy and will to live. But we are so focused on keeping the \u201croot of bitterness\u201d from lodging in our hearts that we can never say, \u201cEnough is enough. I won\u2019t allow you to treat me this way.\u201d Taking a stand like this doesn\u2019t mean we don\u2019t forgive. It means we need space in order to get far enough away from the pain to really forgive. Sometimes forgiveness means knowing when you need to separate yourself from someone or something in order to stay healthy and happy.<\/p>\n

    Anger, too, is not the enemy of forgiveness. Anger is a natural response to hurt. It energizes and gives us the power to get away from the hurt, like adrenaline helps us get away from dangerous situations. It\u2019s also a response to injustice: we can be angry not only at the pain we suffered, but at the pain others are suffering from the same source. Anger is a useful tool, one that we shouldn\u2019t fear. It\u2019s also a normal part of grieving the pain, loss and frustration we\u2019ve felt in our experiences in the Message. It will run its course; it does not need to be pried out with forceps or a crowbar. There is no Rapture to be missed. There is time to work through the pain. And it doesn\u2019t go at once \u2013 sometimes the anger comes back when the memories resurface. When we\u2019ve faced so much pain, it\u2019s normal for memories to get buried and suddenly flare up when our minds are able to process them in peace. The five stages of grieving don\u2019t come sequentially: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance fluctuate continuously, often catching us by surprise. There is no program to follow, no clear trajectory \u2013 only honesty with our hearts and minds.<\/p>\n

    There is freedom in allowing ourselves to feel whatever it is we\u2019re feeling. We were told all along to deny our anger or sadness \u2013 we were to reject those \u201clying vanities\u201d and profess that we had the \u201cjoy of the Lord.\u201d We were to rebuke the demons of unhappiness and call on the Holy Spirit to deliver us from the rebellious spirits of discontent. And all this time we denied what was always natural and normal: we were told that we had to be something we were not, and it made us angry. It made us sad that we couldn\u2019t fit in or live up to the expectations of the Message. It made me envious of the little boys who grew up without being told that they were destined to serve and obey their spouses, without being told to deny their dreams and plan for a life of homemaking. But these were invalid emotions: we were not allowed to feel that way. What kind of a testimony were we sharing with the world, right?<\/p>\n

    Now that we\u2019re out, let\u2019s not race to rid ourselves of all the traces of pain. Sometimes the anger gives us energy to right the wrongs that were done to us and to extend a helping hand to those behind us. Sometimes the sadness reminds us that our hearts were bruised because we cared. We are not less valuable because we are angry, or even bitter. Even bitterness can run its course in time and we can find peace. If there is a God who created us, did not that Person design us to feel? To love? To recoil from pain and hate injustice? We do not need to have a testimony: we do not need to pretend that nothing that happened bothered us or that we have found all the answers. Let us revel in the fullness of being human, in having the right to express our pain, to rage and howl and curse if we need to, so that we may better love and soothe and heal with hearts cleansed by release.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    My friends at No Longer Quivering and I are frequently accused of unforgiveness. The blog Steadfast Daughters was deliberately set up to accuse Hillary MacFarland and other \u201cQuivering Daughters\u201d like myself of holding bitter grudges against our parents and churches for the abuse we suffered. The two most common denunciations we receive, actually, are these: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1147,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[362,609],"class_list":["post-226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-leaving","tag-the-message"],"yoast_head":"\nAnger and bitterness<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"My friends at No Longer Quivering and I are frequently accused of unforgiveness. The blog Steadfast Daughters was deliberately set up to accuse Hillary\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/phoenixandolivebranch\/2010\/11\/anger-and-bitterness\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Anger and bitterness\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"My friends at No Longer Quivering and I are frequently accused of unforgiveness. The blog Steadfast Daughters was deliberately set up to accuse Hillary\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/phoenixandolivebranch\/2010\/11\/anger-and-bitterness\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Phoenix and Olive Branch\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-11-11T04:23:54+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2014-07-03T15:29:59+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/phoenixandolivebranch.files.wordpress.com\/2010\/11\/funny-pictures-kitten-is-sort-of-fierce.jpg?w=300\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Sierra Phoenix\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Sierra Phoenix\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/phoenixandolivebranch\/2010\/11\/anger-and-bitterness\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/phoenixandolivebranch\/2010\/11\/anger-and-bitterness\/\",\"name\":\"Anger and bitterness\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/phoenixandolivebranch\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2010-11-11T04:23:54+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2014-07-03T15:29:59+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/phoenixandolivebranch\/#\/schema\/person\/952aea07ba64f7d129b731e325baaf98\"},\"description\":\"My friends at No Longer Quivering and I are frequently accused of unforgiveness. The blog Steadfast Daughters was deliberately set up to accuse Hillary\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/phoenixandolivebranch\/2010\/11\/anger-and-bitterness\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/phoenixandolivebranch\/2010\/11\/anger-and-bitterness\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/phoenixandolivebranch\/2010\/11\/anger-and-bitterness\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/phoenixandolivebranch\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Anger and bitterness\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/phoenixandolivebranch\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/phoenixandolivebranch\/\",\"name\":\"The Phoenix and Olive Branch\",\"description\":\"A survivor blog from a daughter of the Christian Patriarchy movement.\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/phoenixandolivebranch\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/phoenixandolivebranch\/#\/schema\/person\/952aea07ba64f7d129b731e325baaf98\",\"name\":\"Sierra Phoenix\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/phoenixandolivebranch\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/d48231f844de0223ae741959456eebc3?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/d48231f844de0223ae741959456eebc3?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Sierra Phoenix\"},\"description\":\"I grew up a fundamentalist. Twelve years spent in fear, waiting for the world to end. I lived so close to death that I could feel it brushing against my fingertips. Always around the corner was the Rapture, the Tribulation, the falling bombs, the assaults of the devil. I tried to root the evil out of myself, first by starving, then by systematically divesting myself of the things that I loved. All my efforts seemed hopeless. God didn\u2019t want me \u2013 or so I thought. It turns out that the root of the evil wasn\u2019t inside me at all. It was in the mental virus that plagued my church and those around it. My homeschool community. My world was full of it.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/phoenixandolivebranch\/author\/sierrat\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Anger and bitterness","description":"My friends at No Longer Quivering and I are frequently accused of unforgiveness. The blog Steadfast Daughters was deliberately set up to accuse Hillary","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/phoenixandolivebranch\/2010\/11\/anger-and-bitterness\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Anger and bitterness","og_description":"My friends at No Longer Quivering and I are frequently accused of unforgiveness. The blog Steadfast Daughters was deliberately set up to accuse Hillary","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/phoenixandolivebranch\/2010\/11\/anger-and-bitterness\/","og_site_name":"The Phoenix and Olive Branch","article_published_time":"2010-11-11T04:23:54+00:00","article_modified_time":"2014-07-03T15:29:59+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/phoenixandolivebranch.files.wordpress.com\/2010\/11\/funny-pictures-kitten-is-sort-of-fierce.jpg?w=300"}],"author":"Sierra Phoenix","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Sierra Phoenix","Est. reading time":"6 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/phoenixandolivebranch\/2010\/11\/anger-and-bitterness\/","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/phoenixandolivebranch\/2010\/11\/anger-and-bitterness\/","name":"Anger and bitterness","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/phoenixandolivebranch\/#website"},"datePublished":"2010-11-11T04:23:54+00:00","dateModified":"2014-07-03T15:29:59+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/phoenixandolivebranch\/#\/schema\/person\/952aea07ba64f7d129b731e325baaf98"},"description":"My friends at No Longer Quivering and I are frequently accused of unforgiveness. The blog Steadfast Daughters was deliberately set up to accuse Hillary","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/phoenixandolivebranch\/2010\/11\/anger-and-bitterness\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/phoenixandolivebranch\/2010\/11\/anger-and-bitterness\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/phoenixandolivebranch\/2010\/11\/anger-and-bitterness\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/phoenixandolivebranch\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Anger and bitterness"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/phoenixandolivebranch\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/phoenixandolivebranch\/","name":"The Phoenix and Olive Branch","description":"A survivor blog from a daughter of the Christian Patriarchy movement.","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/phoenixandolivebranch\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/phoenixandolivebranch\/#\/schema\/person\/952aea07ba64f7d129b731e325baaf98","name":"Sierra Phoenix","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/phoenixandolivebranch\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/d48231f844de0223ae741959456eebc3?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/d48231f844de0223ae741959456eebc3?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Sierra Phoenix"},"description":"I grew up a fundamentalist. Twelve years spent in fear, waiting for the world to end. I lived so close to death that I could feel it brushing against my fingertips. Always around the corner was the Rapture, the Tribulation, the falling bombs, the assaults of the devil. I tried to root the evil out of myself, first by starving, then by systematically divesting myself of the things that I loved. All my efforts seemed hopeless. God didn\u2019t want me \u2013 or so I thought. It turns out that the root of the evil wasn\u2019t inside me at all. It was in the mental virus that plagued my church and those around it. My homeschool community. My world was full of it.","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/phoenixandolivebranch\/author\/sierrat\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/phoenixandolivebranch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/phoenixandolivebranch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/phoenixandolivebranch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/phoenixandolivebranch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1147"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/phoenixandolivebranch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=226"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/phoenixandolivebranch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/phoenixandolivebranch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/phoenixandolivebranch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/phoenixandolivebranch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}