Laura Smith  

Well, Fiona, welcome to Unsung Stories. Thank you so much for joining us.

 

Fiona  

My pleasure.

 

Laura Smith  

I just said that our listeners can get to know you a little bit more. Would you mind telling us a bit about you and your family life and what everyday life looks like for you?

 

Fiona 

Yeah, sure. So I'm married to Jeff. And we're coming on 11 years [of marriage] this August; we've got three kids, one in year three, one in year one, and one in preschool. So I've got a couple of days where my youngest is at home, and we're doing small group and playdates and food prep, and all those things. And then there's a few days where all the kids are at school and care. And so I've done a bit of volunteering at my church. And I have a kid-free rest day with Jeff, which is lovely. So very thankful for that.

 

Laura Smith 

That's awesome. So you've been married a while now? Thinking back, do you feel like you eased into married life? Or do you think it brought some heart stuff up for you that you needed to process?

 

Fiona  

Yeah, definitely, I think, stuff to process. I think in particular, it made me aware of anger patterns in my life. And that kind of kick-started some growth around that. So I get to share a bit with you about that tonight. Yeah, I don't think Jeff was particularly angry, juicy. He's a great guy. And it was partly just that someone else comes into your space, in my vulnerable spaces, and that meant that they got the overflow of my behaviour. I couldn't just go home to bed and start over. Someone was in my bed. Yeah, I think Jeff also brought his own patterns of emotion into our marriage, and they were really different to mine. So I was heaps more visible, but he was, I'd say, generally pretty uncomfortable with expressing big emotions in himself and others. Yeah. So I think when you put two different people together, like you do in marriage, you're just starting asking questions about how you deal with things. And why do I do that? Why do you do that? Yeah, I think that created some tension.

 

Laura Smith  

Yeah, the joys of newlywed life, hey?

 

Fiona  

Yeah, that's right. Yeah, absolutely.

 

Laura Smith  

So how did that come out for you both? What did it look like?

 

Fiona  

I think with regards to anger, I don't think I was a particularly yelly person at that stage. It's pretty hard to get with someone who's super calm. Yeah, but I just ended up being really passive-aggressive and snappy all the time. So if I was stressed, or sad or tired, I was straight to the aggro. And as we all know, right, real life has all of those things. So I was pretty irritable. Which is funny because people wouldn't have known that about me at the time. People often say, oh you're so calm. And like, no I'm not. Yeah, but in our in our married life, I had an angry heart.

 

Laura Smith  

So it sounds like you could see a lot of heart issues beneath all of it and felt pretty gross.

 

Fiona  

Yeah, yeah. I think initially, I probably wanted to fight that there was a problem. I spent a lot of time trying to blame Jeff or other things, my life circumstances. But I think at the time, I could see that, yes, my heart was full of lots of anger. And that wasn't godly in itself. But also that the way that I had of dealing with that anger was hurtful to the people around me. And to myself, I just ended up feeling really guilty and shameful about that, and feeling like this is something I could never change. I remember feeling like this is something that would never change in me, and that these were just patterns that, you know, this was my family upbringing, it was healthy to share emotion, and you should just let it all out. And this is my personality, and very much a sense of identity around just letting all your emotion come out.

 

Laura Smith  

Everything that you're describing sounds pretty similar to my experience when my kids came along. How did you go when you had kids?

 

Fiona  

Yeah, well, that just intensifies it, doesn't it? Yeah, you must be more godly than me because you managed to survive the marriage part before you became angry.

 

Laura Smith  

No, I just had kids really quickly!

 

Fiona  

You did it all at once. Yeah, I mean, I think that anytime you get new heat on a relationship, all those patterns that you have just get highlighted, expressed more. So for me, each time we had that stress, heat or another kid or there was a challenging parenting season, it was just harder and harder to fight and deal with anger in a helpful way. And even just at the level of the strategies that I might have used in the past to help me deal with anger might not have worked anymore. Like, if I used to go for a walk to let off steam, I couldn't do that now because the kids might be asleep. But I think, too, the kids have seen a different side of my anger overflow than what Jeff saw. They've seen me speaking with lots of big angry yelling at them. They've seen me storm out of the room, and slam doors, and bang things, and be harsh and unkind. Even if I haven't raised my voice, the way that I've related to them has been unkind to them. And even just internally, I've thought things about them that are horrible, that would never want to be repeated. It's pretty gross.

 

Laura Smith  

I'm agreeing with you, not calling you gross. Just saying that, I see the same grossness in myself and just hate it and feel very frustrated by it. What was God showing you in all of this?

 

Fiona  

I think as I've reflected, it's been interesting to see. And remember how frank the Bible is about sin, and that that's actually a good thing. It's actually liberating. I was reflecting on Ephesians 2.

 

Laura Smith  

The frankness of the Bible?

 

Fiona  

Yes. Yeah, it's not, it's not pretending, you know, we want to pretend about stuff like this and pretend that we're not the mum going off with our kids. But the Bible doesn't pretend like that. Ephesians 2, I was reflecting that it talks about how we were dead in our sins, and there's been times where I have absolutely felt like that, unable to solve it. Yeah, just feeling like I could never change. And I think there's something that God's taught me in that to show me that I need to be humble, and that I can't just clean this up on my own. And that's helpful to know.

 

Laura Smith  

I feel like you're just describing the tension so well, I think as a mum, I really don't want my kids modeling me or my anger, but it's just such a real wrestle. And so has there been anything that's given you hope to keep fighting in that wrestle?

 

Fiona  

Yeah, yeah. And I think that's the other side of what God very kindly has taught me even more so is that, you know, and it's Ephesians again, God's great love for us, that He made us alive with Christ, that He saved us by grace, He's raised us up with Christ, and those truths are just so beautiful to me, when I reflect on anger,

 

Laura Smith  

How so?

 

Fiona  

Knowing God loves me. And so when I'm seeing my really ugly heart and feeling gross, and you know, unable to solve it, I still know that God loves me. And He's looking on me. And He sees Christ, wrapped in Christ and His goodness. I think, knowing that I was never saved by good anger management; I was saved by Christ. So I won't live or die on how well I managed that today. And just knowing, I think the biggest thing for me was an identity thing - that I'm raised up with Christ, and I'm new, I've got a new identity. I'm not stuck back there. So yes, I can be humbled, as I look at Scripture and see that, yep, God knows that I have sin in my life, and that that was my past. But He's also made me new, so I'm not stuck there anymore.

 

Laura Smith  

So I'm just agreeing with so much of what you're saying. And it's really, so much of my identity is wrapped up in my anger and my frustration, like, Am I ever going to truly be free of this, and just feeling stuck in that, like, you have a bad morning, and then it's so hard to keep going the rest of the day, and you know, just not be stuck? And the guilt that comes with it, because you don't want to be a yelly, angry person?

 

Fiona  

Yeah, I found that the guilt was what would get me stuck there. So I'd spend the rest of the day either berating myself, or finding a reason to justify what I had done, so that I could get rid of the guilt. So I had really unhelpful ways of trying to deal with that guilt feeling that we get.

 

Laura Smith  

And even on a good day, I'm like, Okay, I'm not feeling guilty. And I apologize to God. And I apologize to my son, because usually, it's my son. And then I turn around, and I do it again. Why am I shocked by that?

 

Fiona 

Yeah, yeah, that's right. And there is something helpful in that, knowing that we will actually do it again and again, and to to go, and God still loves me. And I'm not going to get this right. Just because I had a heart to heart about this with God, like, I'm just gonna have to keep coming back to You. And I'm gonna have to keep coming back to my kids and saying, I'm really sorry. Let's, let's try again, you know. And there's something powerful, I think, in that for our children. They're trying again, and again and again, and we're calling on them to try again and again and again to do the right thing.

 

Laura Smith  

I really think it's part of showing them what a disciple looks like, or that what someone who follows Jesus looks like. Because I don't want to ever be as a mum put myself in a position of authority over them as in again, I have authority over them. But as a Christian, I want to show, Mum wrestles with her sin and keeps fighting it, and we're never going to be perfect this side of Heaven. So this is what it looks like to wrestle. When they feel like oh, I'm never gonna be good enough. Well, Mum's right there with you.

 

Fiona  

That's right. Yeah, we're together, clinging to Jesus. I can't remember the word that we've used, but we often talk, Jeff and I, about not putting on a show in the home, that we're not on about pretense or perfection. And we want that to be consistent in public as well, not just in our home.

 

Laura Smith  

That living authentically?

 

Fiona  

Yeah, to be honest. Yeah, yeah, Jeff and I, yeah, I think Jeff, and I, thank you for your good words, we want to live authentically with our kids. Be honest about sin. And grace.

 

Laura Smith  

So has God changed how you feel or respond to anger. So what difference has the truths in the Bible made for you?

 

Fiona  

Yeah, I think that what God's done and what He says about me has been really essential. That when you fight a sin for a really long time, you're really tempted to say that that's just a core part of my identity. Like I was saying before, you know, I'm not Fiona who's really angry and always has been, like, I'm Fiona who lives with Jesus, and I have the Spirit of God in me. I can fight. Jesus has fought for me, knowing that God doesn't condemn me. He's welcoming me and He's given me the Spirit to fight alongside me and present me mature in Christ. I think those truths just have spoken to me again and again and again to help me keep fighting. And that has actually changed me. Yeah, we could talk a bit more about how that's happened, I guess.

 

Laura Smith  

Hmm, yeah, I was just gonna say, teach me Fiona. How did God do that, and what has that journey looked like for you?

 

Fiona  

Well there's lots of just very ordinary things, I think, that God works through, you know, reading His word and talking with people. There was friends that I spoke to, particularly in the early days. And then over the years, at particular peak points of trying to fight sin. Yeah. Where God's worked through those conversations, and through prayer and all of that. Yeah. I guess, there's been kind of a few key things that I'm happy to share, if you like. I think one of them is making peace with anger, which is a little bit weird. But I think I needed personally to understand a lot more about anger as an emotion that was given by God, in order to know how to handle it better.

 

Laura Smith  

Can you flesh that out a little bit, that anger is also an emotion that's been given to us? And that are you saying that it might not just be sin?

 

Fiona  

Yeah, I think in the past, I wanted to just simplify it like that. And I don't think it's that simple anymore. I think sometimes anger isn't sin. I think we see that in Scripture that anger is an emotion that Jesus presents with. But I just had a really negative view about anger, and I beat it down. Any psychologist will tell you beating down emotion doesn't probably make it go away. Yeah. So you know, here I was, I was very comfortable with crying or laughing or worrying. And I understood what triggered them and why. But I didn't have any kind of dialogue about that with anger. So for me, one thing a psychologist taught me was that anger often comes because we've had a boundary broken, spurs us into action, and so, I'd then be able to go, oh, something's happened that, that I've had a boundary broken, what was it? Why am I so angry? And sometimes it was obvious, sometimes it wasn't. But even just to be able to figure that out, helped me then deal with that angry feeling. Or, sometimes, another helpful thing someone taught me was the anger is often, like, a secondary emotion, they called it. That it's presenting instead of something else that's more vulnerable, like fear or sadness, which was totally me.

 

Laura Smith  

My counsellor is always saying to me, when I just say, Oh, I just feel so angry, or I feel so frustrated, what's the hurt, what's the fear? Labeling it was so helpful, because I go, actually, I am just really hurt that they weren't responding that I asked them to do something. I'm really hurt, like, actually labelling the underlying emotion, I could deal with that. I can deal with processing that more, which then helped the anger.

 

Fiona  

Yeah, or I'm panicked that everyone's gonna see my child lose it, and they're gonna think I'm a bad mother. And so now I'm going to come down really hard, because you know, they're going to turn out bad because I'm a bad mother. So now I'm even more angry about this thing.

 

Laura Smith  

Yeah. And I fear what people are gonna think of me. If you are throwing that tantrum in public, and I fear that people are gonna think that I'm not a good mum, or that I'm not the mum, I want to be perceived as, or my children aren't. Which is actually a whole different issue, then what's actually going on.

 

Fiona  

Yes, exactly. And you'll you'll speak to that in a different way.

 

Laura Smith  

Yeah. But I can actually put that aside then and go, Well, actually, it doesn't matter what people think of me. And I'm going to get into this, I'm going to parent well, rather than be like, be quiet, because I don't want people to hear you. Okay, what's going on? Let me look in, step into your world, what's your hurt and frustration and fear, and let me help you and work through this. And you just pair it from this place of in that situation, I parent from this place of loving them and wanting to help guide them, rather than be quiet, let's save face.

 

Fiona  1

I think it's saying that anger can be a bit of a tool to help us. I think I had to appreciate that anger was trying to tell me something. Yeah, I had to learn to use it well, rather than use it poorly. You know, psychologists are such a valuable resource to us, in that there's so many health professionals that have taken heaps of time to help me understand the way my mind works and emotions work. I feel like now my prayer that I kind of came up with a little while ago was to say, God, like you've given me this emotion, and I'm just praying that you will help me feel it for the right things and express it in the right way, to the right degree. I feel like I'm prone to sin in all of those areas, but yeah, I think God has given us anger. There's some things that I need to be more angry about. Things that God cares about. There's just a lot of things I need to be less angry about. I think psychologists and mentors have also been really helpful for me in understanding myself as a person and my triggers for different behaviours. I now know that if I don't manage sleep well then I'm a lot more likely to lose my temper. And it's something we don't always have control over. But I do still have to take responsibility for that. So I need to go, this has a big impact on me, so there might be other things that I need to sacrifice in order to get a bit more sleep. And that might be different to other people. I still have day naps, and I'm okay with that. Yeah, here I am on a podcast telling the world. But when I can I do, because it makes a really big difference to how I cope with the day and how I deal with anger. And there could be a million other things that I could do in that time to feel productive and effective and like Wonder Woman, but it's actually better.

 

Laura Smith  

Yeah, that's what I was just thinking. It's super humbling to start like you could in that hour get so much done to make you seen as that Superwoman mum. Yeah, choosing to stop and have a rest.

 

Fiona  

Yeah, like, I have to kind of gulp sometimes and be like, no Fi, just let it go out there and, like, let people know that what you're doing right now is going and having a nap. And that's okay. I think often as moms, there's lots of things we don't feel we have control of, and that can be an excuse for sin, you know, with all grace and love. You know, I also have to just learn to take responsibility for that and go well, actually, there's a whole bunch of things I've made choices about as well, about how busy I am, or what I care about, or what I'm going to put on the table, or how clean the house is going to be, or how late I'm going to be to something, or whatever, that are impacting how I'm coping with the day, and I need to take responsibility for that. Yeah, I think too, for me, I had a pattern of behaviour that psychologists helped me notice, which was just to push harder when I had negative emotion. So you know, if the pressure of the day was mounting and things were getting difficult, I would then kick into overdrive to deal with that. But the overflow of that was not good, that I ended up exploding with some anger. I've had to learn to take five steps back from that point, and notice, I'm starting to feel pretty uncomfortable. And I'm going to want to kick into overdrive. But actually, I might need something else right now. Maybe we need to change the expectations of the day, or put the telly on for a little bit, or regroup. Because otherwise, this might end up in a big anger spill over that you're not gonna feel happy about.

 

Laura Smith  

That's really helpful. Has there been anything else that's been a highlight to you in dealing with your anger?

 

Fiona  

Yes. Yeah, I think another really big thing for me has been confession. And I feel like this was something that I just thought was a ritual that was pretty irrelevant for Christians. But I think it's been really, really helpful for me. And God's used it to just preach gospel truth to me over and over and over again.

 

Laura Smith  

And so when you say confession, do you mean, I know that you're not Catholic. So I'm assuming you don't mean going and telling a priest or your pastor? What do you mean by confession? Confession to God, confession to yourself or people around you? How does that look for you?

 

Fiona  

Yeah, I think just going straight to God and saying, I'm sorry for what I've done. And, and I think for me, acknowledging that God has given me forgiveness when I do that. He's forgiven me once for all in Christ. But it's an opportunity for me to say sorry to God for what I've done and to remind myself that Jesus has paid the price for my sins, and I'm forgiven. And let's move forward. So it's almost a practice, I guess, the practice of saying that has helped me speak those truths, I guess.

 

Laura Smith  

And how beautiful that we actually get to be in a relationship with the God of the universe, that we can just go and talk to Him and say, Hey, I'm sorry. And that in itself is pretty mind blowing.

 

Fiona  

Totally. Yeah, and I think, you know, we talked about guilt before. I think there's a lot of guilt that the devil can throw at us that makes us want to run from that relationship. But Hebrews is so confident of that. It's like you have access to the God of the universe that's been bought for you with the blood of Christ that's not in jeopardy. Come and meet in the throne room, and deal with this, and move forward with that forgiveness. That's become a really beautiful thing for me to do. And I think sometimes that's been really achy and painful. But there's other times where it's just been a minor conversation in the car ride. I don't think it has to be ritualized or glamorous or emotional. I think it's just acknowledging this has happened. And that is actually yuck. Like, it helps me recognize, yes it is sin, what's happened there. But that's not where the story ends. I'm forgiven. I'm a new person, and I'm going to keep growing in Christ. It sort of holds both those truths in tandem, rather than just brushing it aside or pretending it doesn't matter. And then missing out on the beautiful grace that God gives us when we're broken by sin. And I think it's helped me as well with apologizing to others more quickly, so learning to say sorry to Jeff, and how my anger has impacted him, or learning to say sorry to the kids and helping practice that together. There's times where I've had big burnings with my daughter, who's much like her mother. Beautiful, fiery, young lady, and sometimes that's ended in a gross way. And we've had to, together, say sorry to God and sorry to each other, and to say, thank you, God for your love and forgiveness, and help love each other better.

 

Laura Smith  

That's pretty beautiful. So if you can reflect back on all the last few years, what do you think? What's the biggest take home for you?

 

Fiona  

I think the word is "hope" for me. I think I felt hopeless back then. And I think the thing that I now know is that there's hope of change. And I have that as a testimony for all sin in my life now, that I have hope that God can change me because I've seen Him change me. Slowly, slowly, slowly, over so many years. It's felt like it's taken so long. But I think God gave me hope that He could. And then now I stand on the other side seeing that He has, and I'm, I'm still so desperately needed His help. Like, it's not like I've arrived. But I'm confident that He'll keep doing it.

 

Laura Smith  

That's beautiful. I was just thinking, like, is mine hope? I think mine's, I've learned to rest, and rest in that I can come to God. So I've really learned to just rest in that God's not surprised that I'm sinful. And He's not surprised that I've sinned again. And his grace has not run out. I can just keep going and just resting in the arms of my Father. He's got me, and it's not gonna be like this forever. Yeah, thanks, God. Yes. I'm actually really grateful we're having this conversation, because everything that you're saying, you see how far you've actually come, which gives you hope when you are sinful. You know, that age old saying, I'm not where I want to be. But I'm not where I was. And it's nice to have time under your belt and see that God is actually working in us.

 

Fiona  

Yeah, I used to be jealous of people who had testimonies like that of significant change in their life. I felt like I didn't have that testimony, or evidence that God would do that. It wasn't real to me yet. In God's kindness, it has become more real to me in shaping the way that I deal with anger.

 

Laura Smith  

I think it's similar to fruit. Like, everyone just wants the fruit. But you don't want the hard part of like growing the fruit and being refined, or being pruned and all of that. I just feel like it's so beautiful that God uses the grossness of our sin, and fighting that, to produce fruit. What a gift.

 

Fiona  

I often say yeah, I just really want to be that really beautiful, godly, 50 year old woman that's really patient and trusting of God. And you don't just snap your fingers and become that. It's the, it's the millions of dirty nappies she changed, and the, you know, not that mothering is what makes it that, but yeah.

 

Laura Smith  

Well, you hear, I've heard a few times in sermons and stuff, they say, being a Christian, you don't fall away all of a sudden. It's death by 1000 cuts. But I think that's also what makes a Christian as well. You're made by the 1000 seemingly insignificant choices that you make to be faithful and obedient and follow Christ. So what would you remind the mom who is struggling with her anger, or even just struggling with another scene that she feels like she's never going to have control over?

 

Fiona  

I really want to share some paraphrases of Ephesians 2 again. It's just what we need to hear over and over when we're fighting sin, whether it's anger or anything else. I'll just share Fi's paraphrase. You were dead in sin. All of us used to be. Following our desires, deserving of wrath, but because of His great love for us, God made us alive with Christ. It is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ. We are seated with Him in the Heavenly realms. We're God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do the good works He's prepared for us. We know that sin matters, that anger matters, how we handle anger matters. But God loves you. He forgives you. He made you new. He's going to grow the look more and more like the Jesus-shaped version of you. That we might one day be people that get angry about the right things at the right time and in the right way. We're not trapped in sin anymore. We're being transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit. And just praying that for us all I think. We're sorry for feeling like we have to sort it all out on our own, for running from you. Thank you so much that you open your arms to us, that you have done everything necessary for us to come and meet with you and to be able to say sorry, and to move forward. Thank you for your love and care and grace. Thank you that you welcome us, again and again and again, in Christ. Thank you that you look on us and see Christ, and see His goodness and His righteousness in our place. We pray, God, that you would help us to see ourselves the way you see us. To see ourselves with you. And to be ready to fight sin knowing that that doesn't trap us anymore and we're not bound by that. We pray that you will be with other mummas out there that are hurting and aching and feeling hopeless, or feeling like they can't come to you because there's no grace left. We just hear your words again, that you welcome us, that you save us, and that you forgive us. And so we pray that that would be so real to mums that are hurting and fighting sin. We pray that you would give them hope in you, hope for change, and power to keep fighting. And we pray that you would give them rest. Rest in you and in your goodness and grace. And we do pray, God, that you would change us, that you would help us to look like Jesus. And that in years to come, you give heaps of us more and more testimonies of your goodness and grace and the way that you've changed us, and that we'd be willing to be open with each other, and share that, and celebrate how you take broken people and bring them to life and prepare them for a life with you. Amen.

 

Laura Smith  

Amen.