Chinese Proverb Say. . .

I was at dinner the other night with a good friend of mine. We met in my divorce recovery class about a year ago and since then we've kept in touch via Face book and e-mail. While at dinner in this fantastic Chinese restaurant, we talked about how much we've both grown in the last year and where we've both sort of been stagnant. Over beef with broccoli and steamed rice, I came to the realization that it's time I got angry about what happened to me.

I've been battling this for a long, long time. The difference between anger and hatred, the fear that comes with realizing that this kind of emotion is something I've never really felt before, and the reservations I have about how necessary this is to my healing are concepts I've both mulled over and avoided. What really is anger and what does scripture say about its role in our lives?

I know that we're told not to sin in our anger. It's interesting to me that God doesn't say "If you happen to get angry". No where are we commanded to not get angry and I can't find anything that says that anger in and of itself is a sin. We're definitely encouraged to forgive, but does forgiveness mean that you don't feel mad anymore? All things I intend on exploring in the coming days and weeks.

As we ate, we talked about how being abandoned by your spouse lets fear into your life. For a while I've been afraid that the brokenness I've felt has made me unworthy of being blessed with beauty in my life. I've made mistakes in the last year and a half and God has blessed me all along the way but there have been times when I've wondered if I really deserve His blessings, as if somehow I'm now tainted or shamed into some form of second class citizenry in His eyes. Common sense tells me that's not true but the heart is a world all of its own.

While I sipped my Jasmine tea, I realized that these feelings come from a desire to shoulder all of the responsibility of my divorce. While I know it's impossible that there isn't SOME part of this that is somehow my fault, I took my portion too far and decided to take total responsibility. There are still no explanations for my ex-husbands decision to leave me. However, just like science still doesn't completely comprehend the role an individual gene plays in determining exactly how a person will look, I may never comprehend my role in my divorce. That makes me no less or more responsible and, in God's eyes, no less or more a child of His.

The fortune cookies came and I carefully eyed the small black tray with the bill on it. Feeling that it was a good metaphorical representation of how I still feel inside, I reached over and picked up the one that was broken and smashed. I popped open the wrapper and picked out the cookie, shard by shard. Per my own tradition I saved reading the fortune for last and when I pulled it out, the paper felt unusually thick. To my surprise, there were twelve fortunes inside that one broken cookie! As we read each and every one of them, my friend and I threw our heads back and laughed at the irony of it all. It's just like God to pack a lot of great blessings into something broken and less than ideal. The value of a person rests in His eyes and it cannot be diminished by our circumstances or our mistakes. THAT is more than just good fortune-it's His grace. . . and I'm grateful.