Encountering Grace

Sometimes I wonder how many people realize how angry of a person I tend to be. I mean, if you were around for the earliest years of this blog, you're probably aware. And if you paid any attention to my Facebook account from about 2019 to 2022, you're almost definitely aware. But in person? My most common threat response is to go into fawn mode - to placate whoever is in front of me however necessary to get out of the situation as quickly as I possibly can. I'm a people-pleaser who is agreeable in person and will seethe for hours or days afterward. There are times that it comes in handy, especially in my current position at work where I'm coordinating members of various teams of people - internally and externally - who don't always see eye-to-eye. But it also means that a lot of people outside my innermost circle of safety never come face-to-face with the darker, uglier side of me.

But that side is often there, lying under the surface, that anger. At times it's been a coping mechanism to stay functional. It's a lot easier to continue to get things done at work or at home through anger than through feeling the hurt that lies beneath it, especially when these days that anger is so intertwined with not seeing eye-to-eye with a few key others whose action or inaction causes pain to my friends - a protector at heart, I'm nearly always at my peak rage in the scenarios where the people I care about are getting hurt. The thing is, when that level of anger goes on for as long as it's been going on, it has a way of turning into bitterness, and, in my case, my inability to get a reign on that bitterness manages lately to cause further wounds to those same friends I'm trying to protect. Every. Single. Time.

I lose my filter. I add to their burden. I make their lives harder. I cause direct pain. And each time, I spiral. And I retreat. Far too aware of how undeserving I am to remain a friend. Far too afraid of the condemnation I know that I'm due in return.

And yet.

The first time that I was notably caught off guard came during a stretch when my bitterness-fueled anxiety led to selfish actions that made a couple of my work family members' jobs much harder during a stretch that they were suddenly thrust into decision-making roles. It wasn't anything that I'd done overtly, but that didn't change the understanding that knowing had I acted differently, it would have made their lives easier. On the day it really came to a head, I spent a solid chunk of the day in full-on avoidance mode, but, having recently committed myself to being better about honestly admitting my mistakes, I eventually worked myself up to sharing where I was at with one of those friends. I'd spent at least an hour trying to run through how to approach the conversation before I started it, and I'm still pretty sure I did most of it wrong, but instead of the condemnation I was expecting for how I'd acted, what I received was full caring and concern for how hard I was being on myself as a result. What I experienced was grace.

A couple of months later as things at work were transitioning to a new normal, my frustration and confusion spilled over into avoiding a hard conversation with one work family member while venting about my anxieties to another who, while I never asked her to step in, I knew full well was likely to do so. What resulted was a scenario far too resemblant of those in the too recent, still painful past where everyone had often been pitted against each other in manipulative ways, and the situation nearly boiled over. Yet the next day as I had frustrations rise once more, the one who'd been most exasperated the day prior stood with me in my vulnerable, anxiety-ridden resentment and worked to counsel me through it despite the pain I'd caused him just 24 hours before. Further grace that I didn't deserve.

As the months passed, I racked up further moments of grace. Some large, some small. I began to find safety in the vulnerability of admitting not just task-based mistakes but character flaws and poor decisions. Which on some level was good because my stumbles continued to hurt the people I most wanted to protect, to a point that it motivated me to begin working on the undercurrent of anger and bitterness that's always run deep. But after a while the guilt began to seep in and I feared that I had taken too much advantage of the grace and of the safety my work family provided. Meanwhile as departmental structure and roles shifted, I suddenly found myself providentially in a new role with one of the biggest offerers of grace as my new supervisor. Despite my gratitude to find myself under his leadership, the shift in hierarchy led me to retreat. It's one thing to share with a respected and trusted co-worker your character struggles; it's a whole other thing to tell your boss.

As we experienced the growing pains of shifting personnel and structure, I made it my goal to avoid adding to anyone's ever-growing stress loads. Ever-aware of my shortcomings, I began to withdraw. But trying to go it alone, I constantly failed in some way, shape, or form, especially as the stressors of my new role became apparent and frustrations of the past continued to simmer under the surface. Then there came the stretch of a few weeks at the beginning of the year that I went into with a single-minded goal of "I am going to do everything possible to be sure that I don't cause problems for my work family members" - and failed constantly. Where other work stressors drained my energy, my filter wore thin around those who I knew were safe, and all the worst of me leaked out in their presence. It came to a head on a day that I said and did all the wrong things and was continually in the way - both figuratively and literally. I mentally kept describing it as "Open foot, insert mouth" day, which I recognize came out as the converse of the usual phrase, but that somehow seemed a rather appropriate alternative - my mouth needed to be locked away somewhere it couldn't be used. By the time I got home, the tears of guilt began leaking out and continued for most of the 24 hours that followed. Weighing whether my work family would be more worried by a me that couldn't stop the tears or more worried by a me who was non-present, I realized that I felt too ashamed to look any of them in the eye after the preceding day and opted to go into full avoidance mode where tasks of the day didn't force us together. I felt like nothing more than a toxic parasite who took what I needed from the friendships while being a drain on them, offering only negativity in return. To my advantage, on that day of avoidance most of them assumed that I was swamped with work-related tasks and chalked my absence up to that. My boss, who had been around me enough to see the full day of tears, pulled me aside the following day trying to dig into what was going on, wanting to offer support; I gave the vaguest possible answers, too afraid to admit the character flaws at the root of my spiral day to someone in an authority role, despite knowing his heart. He walked away clearly less-than-satisfied, but honored my choice to not share details. That day I rejected the opportunity for grace.

I eventually pulled myself out of that day's spiral, slowly but surely. My ability to filter my level of work frustrations new and old improved enough that I ceased to feel a burden, though I could feel the wheels on my sanity beginning to break loose and tried to ignore it. I didn't so much care what happened to me so long as my friends were okay. It was a solution that seemed like it was working. Until it didn't. Until I watched their loads get piled higher where I felt helpless to come to their aid, and all of a sudden all of the worst of me exploded. Where one went on a raging tirade, I encouraged it - even joined in - rather than provide calm, rational alternatives. Where another was already overburdened, I added to the load. Where one tried to bring some sense of calm and logic to the chaos, I snarked back in return. And a last one got caught in the crossfire of my anger-fueled impulsivity. Plus where anger was once the catalyst that allowed me to remain functional at my job, my work quality took a notable hit in the types of details that are usually my specialty. It was almost as though I was watching myself burn up everything around me in flames ignited by an atomic bomb of rage, and I couldn't stop myself - nor did I particularly desire to. I spent the evening that followed continuing to seethe, and it became the first time in recent memory that I couldn't sleep because of the anger pulsating through my body.

I awoke still angry the next morning, not necessarily wanting to address its causes but wanting to at least have better control over it. Where my anger was directed at those farthest outside my circle of safety, the people who'd been caught in its crosshairs were the people I most wanted to protect. I'd for the first time in months found myself at a comfortable, peaceful point with all of them, and I'd destroyed it all in one fell swoop. In guilt and shame, I prepared myself to have to pick up the pieces, knowing I deserved whatever critical response they wanted to direct my way. I turned my filter up to 11 with the one who I'd joined in rage the previous day. I gave a meager apology to the one who'd been caught in the crossfire. I avoided oversharing with the one who didn't need further drama added to her plate. And I resigned myself to having a long-avoided conversation with my boss about where my head had been at.

My boss had only a week or two earlier, in his shepherding way, taken a moment at the end of our lunch break to remind our work family of the dangers of allowing anger to turn into bitterness and the damage that bitterness can do. I didn't disagree with him at the time, nor did I question the level of relevance of his reminder, but I wasn't in a mood to deal with it at that point. So on the day following my hurricane of rage, I figured I was in for a repeat of that previous talk. Instead as I shared my struggle, I was met with the response that it sounded like I was right on track - that I recognized where I'd stumbled and was looking to do better, to fight the right battles, and the best thing I could do was to not give up that fight. He assured me that my struggles of the preceding day didn't change my status with God, and reminded me that God can still use my mistakes for His good. And when I expressed my fears that I'd stumble and make work harder for everyone else once more, my boss reminded me that I am not powerful enough to usurp God's plans (and thank goodness for that!), and that God would have grace for me and for all those who my stumbles may affect. Despite all my fears going into that conversation, I was met with compassion and encouragement. I was met with grace.

Last fall in my church's women's Bible study on the topic of varying spiritual practices, we spent one week covering the practice of confession. One of the points was the importance of confessing your sins not only to God but to another believer who will hold you accountable while also meeting you with grace - and how confessing to others in such a way generally leads to the sin losing its power over you. And in many ways, that's what happened on the day I spent picking up the broken pieces of what my rage had destroyed. By the end of my conversation with my boss, my heart felt lighter, and through the rest of the day a calmer, cooler head prevailed. The anger dissipated, at least for that time, and the choices I made were ones more likely to support and not cause greater burden to my friends.

That's not to say that the day was easy. I still spent some time sitting in the guilt, deservedly so. Our morning break was filled with a tense silence. Lunch wasn't much better. By afternoon break time, the air began to lighten once more, and by the end of the day there were glimpses into normalcy. I'm not saying that all is back to where it was, and I'm figuring that there will still be a variety of hard conversations ahead. But in the midst of all of the damage that my ugliness wrought, there still lie bits and pieces of the image of grace.

In the past year of cultivating work friendships deep enough, valued enough, and safe enough that I claim them as chosen family, I have learned far more about the experience of grace than I ever imagined - and far more than I realized I had yet to learn. For if this is the vastness of imperfect human grace, how much deeper and wider must run the immensity of God's grace for me? If my imperfectly human chosen family will stand by me and continue to move forward with me after seeing so much of the worst of me, what more does that say of a perfect God's promise to never abandon me, even knowing the greater depths of my sin?

It's a reminder I've needed in recent years. It wasn't so long ago that I'd given up on my place in God's plans for redemption - as in I'd fully resigned myself to believing that I was destined for an eternity in hell. So to repeatedly experience such vast grace - often through the demonstration of those who I once feared for their association with a Christian denomination with a reputation for its judgment and condemnation, no less? It's slowly but surely bringing me a new sense of peace. I know there will be a day when the human grace fails - humans are gonna human. But I hope that when that time comes I'll have built enough confidence in God's grace to rest easy in it and continue to move forward.

Even more so, the grace that I've experienced is slowly transforming me. It's so much easier to move forward with a drive to do better, to be better, when the guilt and shame aren't there weighing you down or even leading you to dig in on the defensive. I'm not the same person I was a year ago in so many ways that I didn't imagine possible, in ways for which I'm grateful. And perhaps, slowly but surely, as grace transforms my heart, it will help to wash away the bitterness in a way that allows me to be not just the receiver of grace but the one who demonstrates it to others in such a way that they might also begin to find peace in the even greater grace that God offers.