Sleep to Dream

Anger is an all-consuming emotion. I used to feel that being angry was a bad thing. It's only been in the last couple years I've learned to accept anger as a legitimate, acceptable, natural human emotion. Sometimes I do and say things out of anger that are destructive, but I am usually very quick to recognize my fault and apologize. Lately though I've been a lot more angry. Everyone has bad days, I have bad months. I don't think I've not been angry since June. Not to say that I was never angry before that, but I don't think a day has passed in the last four months where I have not been mad about something or someone. I've never been an angry person. I've typically been good natured, easy-going, and kind. I don't know to what I should attribute this drastic change in attitude, but I think it's getting worse. It's gotten to the point where I can't sleep because I have dreams where I'm angry. I thought maybe it was just stress. But the situations in my dreams are not just stressful, they are enraging.

At this point I should probably explain that I am sort of a mystic about dreams. I think they reveal a lot about what's going on emotionally and spiritually. I don't like to admit when I'm upset or acknowledge when I've been wronged, I just let things slide. So when I start having repetitive dreams that mirror frustrating emotional situations I have to pay attention. Last night I had a dream that I kept falling back in to. I was in a prison where I was accused of a crime I never committed. I was in a cell with two friends and they were plotting an escape but they refused to discuss it with me. When the guard came in to question me, my friends stood by with their hands behind their backs as the guard repeatedly tazed me. I couldn't speak because he was tazing my neck and my entire body was limp from the electric current. What kept waking me up in a cold sweat was not the pain from the tazing it was the anger I felt toward my friends who continued to allow this to happen to me even though they knew I was innocent.
Here's what I think it means:

I'm angry and God and people because I have been very disappointed

I'm disappointed because I don't believe God has provided for me very well, and I'm disappointed in my friends because I feel they have abandoned me - both parties have failed to uphold what I believe to be their primary purpose in the relationship.

I feel hopeless at times about my future and trapped by my current circumstances.


Now I concede that I may have had unreasonable expectations for God and friends, but I don't think my expectations were completely unfounded. So this is confusing, disappointing, and enraging. My natural reaction to such disappointments is to push them away and insist that I don't need them anyway. I feel like God has led me in to the desert to wander for forty years and all my friends have found their way out and left me behind. I thought we were supposed to be on this journey together. What happened? I want to believe that God is good and that he loves me. I want to believe that I have people who care about me. But lately there isn't any evidence of this. I refuse to be powerless as a result of this abandonment. So I choose anger. I don't like it. I would much rather be hopeful and optimistic. I've always pitied bitter people because I recognized the disappointment they must have experienced to make them so hateful. I believe I have a good heart. I want to love freely and deeply. I hope I'm still capable when I finally make it to Canaan.