There are always problems within the world, within society, within a country, within culture, within the church, and within a family... However, few of us pay much attention to that which holds dwelling inside of ourselves. This is an unfortunately rare thing to recognize, which is a gross misfortune- many of our bloodiest battles are faught in our own minds.
Some humans have more problems than others, or some people have vastly different issues to contend with. Then some people, like me, have a tempest of things running amock in our gray matter, and it's just exaughsting.
You see, for most of my life, I didn't have anyone to talk to... I was an Athiest by the age of 12, and really, for a 12 year old, that's a terribly depressing place to be. I can recall trying to wrap my mind around what it would be like when I die, what it is to not exist, and finding that any conclusion I came to was either astoundingly disheartening, or the contradictions made my mind do backflips and frontflips and cartwheels without my say... But I digress, that is not the point.
The point of this isn't Athiesm, it's Wrath. Wrath, like that thought of non-existance, is something one must fight.
I have lived with Wrath, to the point that yes, I capitalize it as though it's a being. It may as well be, when a person gets truely Wrathful, it's as though they have been replaced by some other creature. When I was in 4th grade, I wrote a story called Venom... I can't really recally recall why, but over the years, I identified Wrath as The Mind's Venom. It's always there for those that have it, and it seeps into you, makes you change in unwanted ways... It could even kill you if you let it.
The reason I bring this up is because Wrath is something that's such a large part of me, it's so engrained into my person, that I literally must pray and ask God to help me stay my anger. Now, I was talking to a teacher and she stated something... I'm not entirely sure what started the conversation, but I ended up trying to describe exactly what Wrath feels like for me.
I describe it as this- Like a venom... It makes your muscles twitch, and your skin crawl, and makes you feel like you must do something with your body. Makes you feel like you MUST hurt something, you must find balance just to make your skin quit lurching over your muscles, just to make you feel normal. Your eyes dialite, they focus on somebody, something and they stay there, like stones, watching, waiting, forcing your mind to harp on all the bad, all the anger, all the rage that's currently welling up in your stomach, trying to force its way out through you.
And then, after you finally let it out, after you hit a wall or pull out your hair or hurt someone (even yourself)... Everything goes quiet... Everything goes still and peaceful, and you feel normal.
THAT is Wrath... There are those of us who have to deal with it. I've gathered over the years that Wrath is not the same as anger, it's not the same as hatred. Wrath is something inside of you, a bit more than just an emotion. Emotions you can stay, you can control, you can breath and they're just in your mind. Wrath is something different. It even makes you react physically.
So, here's the point. Living with the curse that is Wrath, I've only ever found one real way to deal with it, one real way to get it to stop making your body react in strange ways, to keep yourself from hurting someone terribly.
That way, is *dun dun dun* God. You probably guessed that... But I'm actually being completely serious...
I've recently come close to allowing Wrath to make me do some very very horrible things. I've tried to count back from 100, tried Buddhist meditation, tried stress relieving objects... Just about everything except illicit drugs. The only thing I've got that makes it all go away, even for a second, is God...
So, if you have to deal with the curse of Wrath, the next time you feel like hurting someone, the next time you feel like hurting yourself... Pray...
I'm not promising it will always work, but He's the only one who can help... Far more than you can help yourself.
-Bethany Faith
