🔑 IT’S NEVER TIME TO QUIT — PIECE FIVE

ANGER CAN TALK.

IT CANNOT DRIVE THE WHOLE WAY.

Beloveds,

I know something about anger.

👀

Anger has information.

Sometimes VERY useful information.

Something hurt.

Something was unfair.

Somebody crossed a boundary.

Something I trusted failed me.

I am exhausted.

I have asked nicely seventeen times and apparently we have now entered the COME CORRECT portion of the program.

🤣👀

Anger can tell the truth.

And I think sometimes we become so afraid of anger that we try to silence it before we have even heard what it came to say.

Especially certain people’s anger.

Especially women’s anger.

Especially Black women’s anger.

Especially the anger of people who are expected to absorb hurt politely so everybody else can remain comfortable.

Nah, fam.

🔑

Anger gets a chair.

It gets to talk.

It gets to tell me:

That hurt.

That was wrong.

I am tired.

I deserved better.

This boundary matters.

Something needs to change.

I will not pretend this is okay.

Those can be necessary truths.

But anger does not get every job.

It cannot be the driver, navigator, mechanic, GPS, road map, gas station attendant AND person screaming directions from the back seat.

🤣

Eventually somebody has to say:

Thank you.

I heard you.

Now let me decide where we are actually going.

🔑

Because anger is powerful.

But power and wisdom are not automatically the same thing.

Anger can identify the fire.

It cannot always tell me what deserves to be rebuilt after the fire.

Anger can tell me a boundary was violated.

It cannot always determine the wisest boundary to build next.

Anger can tell me I have had enough.

It cannot always tell me what tomorrow should look like.

That requires something else.

Discernment.

Time.

Truth.

Prayer, for me.

Sometimes counsel.

Sometimes rest.

Sometimes distance.

Sometimes one night of sleep before I send THAT message.

👀🤣

And sometimes?

Anger was absolutely right.

🔑

That matters too.

I do not want to turn this into another lesson where anger is treated like the troublesome emotion that needs to behave itself.

Sometimes anger is the first part of us brave enough to say:

NO.

Sometimes anger notices injustice before our polite vocabulary catches up.

Sometimes anger protects something tenderness could not protect by itself.

Sometimes anger gets us out of the chair we should never have been sitting in.

So I am not throwing anger out of the car.

I am just moving it out of the driver’s seat.

Come on.

You can ride.

🤣

But we are NOT driving 97 miles per hour through three emotional toll booths because somebody got on our nerves.

👀

We have somewhere better to go.

🔑

And maybe this belongs in a series called It’s Never Time to Quit because frustration can make quitting feel urgent.

Right now.

Today.

Burn it down.

Delete everything.

Never speak to them again.

Give up.

Walk away.

Decide the whole thing was a mistake.

But sometimes the feeling is real while the conclusion is premature.

I can honor what anger is telling me without allowing one furious moment to write the ending.

That is a kind of perseverance too.

Not suppressing myself.

Not pretending.

Not swallowing every hurt and calling it grace.

Listening.

Learning.

Then choosing.

🔑

Beloveds, maybe you are angry today.

I am not going to tell you to stop.

I am going to ask you something different.

What is your anger trying to tell you?

Not what is it demanding you DO.

What is it telling you?

There is a difference.

Is it telling you that you are tired?

That somebody crossed a line?

That you need help?

That you need rest?

That something is unjust?

That you have been silent too long?

That you keep expecting something from somebody who has repeatedly shown you they cannot—or will not—give it?

That you need to forgive?

That you need distance?

That you need to speak?

That you need to stop speaking and listen?

That you need to change the method?

That you need to leave the door closed?

👀🔑

Listen carefully.

There may be a key hiding underneath all that heat.

Then decide what deserves to drive.

For me, anger may ride in the car.

But love gets a vote.

Wisdom gets a vote.

Truth gets a vote.

Faith gets a vote.

My future gets a vote.

And Cassandra gets a vote too.

💃🏿

Because my anger belongs to me.

But so does my next choice.

🔑

ANGER CAN TALK.

IT CANNOT DRIVE THE WHOLE WAY.

You matter to me.

Cassandra

#YourLifeMattersToMe

One step. One step. One step.

You are loved.

You are NOT alone.

Keep on being…YOU!