It was near the end of my seven years as a missionary with Youth with a Mission, when anger I didn’t even know I had began to surface.  I was in my early twenties, ministering in a girl’s orphanage in Romania.  I knew clearer than anything else in my life that God had called me to come be with Him in Romania; but I also knew I wouldn’t be there forever.  One night, a young man who had translated for our team had to leave indefinitely.  This young man was greatly loved, and his departure left a dramatic void. The precious girls in the orphanage struggled with painful memories of abandonment; yet another person they had trusted was disappearing from their lives.  Some became clingy & inconsolable, while others hid away.

        As I witnessed these painful scenes, for the first time ever I had an issue with the Lord.  I was angry.  Why have You brought me here, Lord?  I wondered in

I was born a Ludy and for love & adventure became a Kuebler.  I am a daughter by adoption of the greatest King ever.  I am one of His favorites!  I live in the wild wooded parts of Michigan with my awesome outdoorsy man of God, Scott, and our 3 dear & vibrant children:  Moriah the Imaginative, Kyle the Tenderhearted & Carson the Delightful.  We share our gardens with the deer and turkey and bunnies.  I have been a teacher by profession for over 20 years.  Now, I get to disciple our children at home.  I am passionate for the glory of my King.

A BIT ABOUT the AUTHOR:

    frozen blueberries  .  stories of real life heroes  .  digging in the dirt

playing & laughing with my family  .  worship  .  tender moments

                        a child’s thoughts  .  people in our home  .  drawing children

frustration. I know that I am soon going to have to leave this place too. Won’t I just become another abandonment in these young lives?  These girls are unprotected, alone, unlovable, flawed.  What benefit can possibly come from my limited time with them?  It seems it’s going to do more harm than good! 

The anger I felt was different than other times in my life when I’d been upset, and the new and confusing emotions led me into heart to heart dialogue with God.  This anger I felt wasn’t focused on protecting my interests; there had been too much of that in my life already!  Rather, I was angry on behalf of these forgotten lives, wondering why they must be forsaken yet again.  And I realized that what I was feeling was just a small taste of God’s fierce protective heart for these orphans.

That morning, I read a strange story in the gospel of Luke about a woman whose son had just

died.  Jesus came on the scene in the middle of the funeral procession.  As I read, I felt the bitterness of her soul, the bolted door of death to all her hopes & dreams.  He said, “Woman, stop crying.” That didn’t sound very compassionate to me! But His love, shown in anger toward the separation brought about by sin and death, moved Him to turn a morbid occasion into one of awe and rejoicing.  Jesus restored a son to his mother and each of them to their true Father.  As I meditated upon this amazing event, I knew God had a work of redemption planned for these orphan girls as well.

I will forever cherish what happened next in the orphanage.  Two evenings later we all gathered together.  A young man and young woman each shared their unique stories with the girls.  As young children, they had both tragically lost their fathers to death.  They had both heard that God is a Father to the fatherless.  In simple yet profound ways, they had each come to experience God as their very real Father.  I could feel the hunger for the father echoing in hollow hearts all around the room.  When the orphan girls were asked who wanted God to be their Father, there was such a resounding cry of affirmation that Heaven responded before a simple prayer could even be prayed.  Stoic little girls began to weep, wail, and cry out to their true Father.   We witnessed a profound visitation by the Father himself.  When we left the orphanage a few days later, these “newly adopted” little princesses were reassuring us that it was okay for us to leave because the Father was with them.  What a beautiful picture of God’s amazing, redemptive love!  The anger I’d felt was replaced with a deep sense of awe and gratitude.

After my time in Romania, I returned home to discover angry and critical thoughts surfacing within me toward my own dear daddy.  I had allowed fear to isolate and keep me from honest communication for too many years. Lord, I prayed, why am I trying to manage these emotions on my own?  What is keeping me from trusting my feelings into Your care?  God could have passed over me to pay attention to someone with deeper needs than me.  But God Himself wanted to heal a devastating breech in my wall.  And as I brought my anger to Him, He tenderly and lovingly restored my soul and even healed my relationship with my dad beyond what I had thought possible.   “Faithful is he who has called you.  He also will do it.” (I Thessalonians 5:24)

What is anger?  The Bible uses images of a fire to talk about this powerful emotion.  It is kindled, it burns, it can be fierce or smolder all night.  In Scripture, human anger is often described as outbursts.  God, on the other hand, is described as slow to anger and great in power. (Nahum 1:3)   When I think of my reasons for being angry in light of God’s reasons to be angry, I am awed by the love that governs His anger.  We are told that the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God.    (James 1:20)  My own fleshly, human anger leads me to punish myself or hurt a loved one with my silence or sarcastic words.  Human anger is marked by selfishness.  God’s anger is marked by