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I still recall with vividness my son’s drawing, proclaiming my anger issues to the world.

It was in red marker (his favorite color). Chunky hands rested on wonderfully slim, stick-figure hips. “I made you look mad, but you’re not mad in this picture,” he explained.

“Am I mad a lot?” I asked, willing him of course to say no.

“You’re mad a lot, but not in this picture,” he clarified helpfully.

See, I didn’t really think I had an anger problem until I had kids. (Newlywed-me actually told my husband I’d never had problems like this with anyone else, so it must be his fault.

True story.)

Digging into My Anger Issues

Maybe you already know your hot buttons.

I’m personally more likely to lose it when we’re in a hurry. When I’m feeling taken for granted. And one particular week a month.

But it helped me to conduct autopsies on my outbursts–discovering what was fueling my anger and how to start cutting off the source of that fuel.

See, back when I was potty-training kids, there was a progression:

1 ) Kids recognize what their bodies just did.

2) Eventually, kids recognize when their bodies are actually doing it.

3) Finally, kids recognize before they need to go.

And that’s me with anger. A lot of times I’m still on step one–figuring out what just happened and what should have happened. When a freeze-frame of my yelling, livid face might not hold the caption, Behold! A Jesus-follower loving her children.

There’s a need for confession and repentance to God. To my kids.

Or sometimes I’m on step 2. Hey, you’re blowing your top! Better step away and make sure the Holy Spirit’s in the one control of you.

But the best happens in step 3–when I’m able to head off an angry outburst at the pass. Or when I can hit the brakes enough that I’m not driven by the emotion, but by love and laser-precise anger.

Keep in mind the powerlessness kids may feel when an authority figure and provider is angry with them. It could possibly be an escalated version of a boss raging at us.

I had to ask: Do I want my kids to have to protect themselves from me?

Why did God create us to get angry in the first place?

My anger, for all its energizing power, has been a destructive, corruptive force, incinerating my kids’ emotions.

I need to handle conflict in ways that actually build my family up rather than tearing it down.

So allow me to ask: Why does God get angry?

You probably know this.

Jesus was angry. Anger is a jetpack for change and injustice. It’s a sign something valuable and precious is trampled on.

God’s anger displays proper justice against those who legitimately do evil. It protects what is right and holy and pure; it acts on behalf of the oppressed.

When we see unspeakable atrocities from genocides or racism or against the poor, it is God as Righteous Judge that gives me any hope for the future (see Matthew 10:26).

For a more extreme example, if someone hurt your son or daughter, for example, anger would be an appropriate emotion.

Making us in his image, God allowed us to share his capacity for this emotion, too.

Anger Issues: What Goes Wrong

But too often, my own scale of “righteous judgment” is…off. (Think of a conveniently non-zeroed bathroom scale after the Chinese buffet.)

My loves swell disproportionately. A proper desire expands into a clawing, judging, punishing demand. (See Hungry: When Soul-cravings Leave Us Vulnerable.)

Usually, I need a few minutes to get out of the more instinctual part of my brain (my fight, flight, or freeze instincts)…and help my kids get out of theirs. It gives me time to pray, too.

Try these questions to help yourself emotionally step away when anger is hot.

The Kind of Anger You Need

So in light of that inevitable human miscalibration, I like Tim Keller’s summary of the anger I need: not No Anger, not Blow (up) Anger, but Slow Anger. God describes himself throughout Scripture as slow to anger, abounding in love.

Keller explains we want to use anger as a scalpel–not a grenade.

Getting to the Heart of Anger Issues

Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks (Matthew 12:34).

So I could be like, Lord, the dog puked on the carpet! And my kids are SO disrespectful! And my husband totally forgot again to pick up milk, so I have to go out with all three kids and strap them in the car seat and take them to the bathroom in the middle of my shopping.

…but that’s not the real issue, is it? Isn’t the issue inside of me?

When I see the source of my anger as outside of myself, I surrender my ability to change.

And honestly, I wish I could tell you, So that was then! Great news is, I’m so much better now!

My anger issues are unquestionably better. In some ways, I’ve sadly passed them on to my kids.

In nearly all ways, it’s a “long obedience in the same direction.” But I’m not the same mom I was when my kids were little. (And my hips are definitely a little wider than a stick figure.)

It’s the hard, beautiful work of God in my life toward holiness–of the Holy Spirit making self-control a reality.

Ready to get a grip on anger with me?

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