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Healing sudden anger

Audrey Carli

The woman’s angry shrieks erased the soothing restaurant music: “This food is cold! Take it back, waitress, and heat it! We ordered a hot dinner, not this!”

I was an inexperienced 16-year-old waitress in our small town’s main tourist cafe. Quivering, I rushed to retrieve the middle-aged couple’s plates of food as I blinked back tears of hurt and anger. I told them their food had been served, but they didn’t stop visiting with the owner at the entryway! I thought. Their food steamed when it was served. It’s not my fault! My heart pounded and I took deep breaths as I entered the kitchen, then handed the food to the cook, explaining what had happened.

Behind me was the angry woman’s husband. “Miss,” he said gently. “I’m sorry. Please try to forgive her? We’re working to help her patience.” He pressed a crisp bill into my palm, then folded my fingers over it. “I also pray a lot. Would you pray for us if you’re a praying person?”

“Thank you. It’ll be okay.” I wasn’t sure when I’d feel better, but I would pray for her patience and for the couple’s peace.

I never learned the outcome – they were tourists – but I realized that prayer for those afflicted with anger was a way I could help.

Years later, a friend confronted me because I had not visited her – even though no invitations had been issued. She came to the door, so I invited her in. As I heated water for tea, she talked about her myriad problems. But her anger soon ignited my own. She accused me of neglecting her. I felt like lashing back that she could have phoned and invited me for a visit.

“Life gets busy,” I said softly.

“Too busy for friendship?” she shouted, and I realized that I was the scapegoat for all the hurtful problems she had just mentioned.

I opened my mouth to yell back. My hammering heart flooded with fury – until I saw her contorted, miserable expression. Tears streamed down her face. “I feel so . . . so . . . unwanted,” she quavered.

My anger stilled to sympathy. I sat beside her, took her quivering hands in mine and said, “Let’s pray and ask Jesus for help and inner peace, okay?”

Our prayer eased her anger like a flattening tire. Later, we shared regular 15-minute phone chats while she adjusted to the fact that her grown family had moved away. We prayed at the end of each conversation. She enrolled in an evening art class and developed a new interest in landscape painting. Her anger at feeling rejected dissolved into peaceful nature scenes on canvas.

A lifelong friend who lived near a route to my parents’ distant residence angrily wrote to me: “I heard that you visit your parents, but you never stop to visit us!”

Her angry letter aroused me to get paper and pen and write back in a similar vein. But I stopped and sat. I prayed for patience, read Scripture (including Ephesians 4:26) and waited for God to soothe my anger. Finally, I wrote, “Thanks for expressing your feelings. It must have taken a lot of courage to write. I realize that you think we drive on the route near you, but we take a different way. It’s shorter and passes my brother’s home. Thanks for letting me know we are welcome! Perhaps next time we’ll take the route by your home and stop if you are free to visit.” We did just that during our next trip.

It appears that life often delivers fresh anger-igniting situations. Anger can strike like a thunderstorm and destroy like lightning. Or anger can be calmed with prayer, Scripture and patience. Proverbs 15:1 encourages, “A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.”


Audrey Carli is a freelance writer from Iron River, Mich.

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Last modified October 20, 2000.

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