Erin came to me exhausted and full of rage. She had recently stepped away from a church that, for years, had shaped how she understood God, herself, and her role in the world—that women are to be silent, submissive, and secondary. On the outside, she had appeared faithful, servant-hearted, and eager to help. But after years of being demeaned and dismissed as a woman, something inside her arose that she just couldn’t shake—anger.
At first, Erin didn’t quite know what to do with it. “I was always taught that anger was sinful,” she said. “That it meant I was bitter or rebellious. That I had a ‘hard heart.’ But now I’m starting to realize that I’m angry because something was wrong. I just didn’t have permission to name it, much less express it.”
Together, we began the slow work of learning to listen to Erin’s anger so she could experience it without either running from it or being swallowed up by it. At first, her body didn’t want to go there. When we touched on the hurt, she either froze up, experienced the start of rage, or shut down. But over time, as we practiced being with her anger safely, she noticed where her anger lived in her body—her clenched jaw, her chest radiating with heat, and the lump in her throat. Erin got to know it and started giving herself space to be with it and feel it—slowly and in small doses. Then one day she shared a moment that marked a shift.
A former church leader had reached out, demanding she return to the church and telling her it had been wrong for her to leave. The message was coated in spiritual language—calls for unity, repentance, submission. The old version of Erin would have blamed herself, questioned her choices, and tried to reconcile just to keep the peace. But this time she didn’t do any of those things. When she read the message and felt the familiar tightness rise in her chest, instead of numbing, exploding, or allowing the tightness to remain stuck in her body, she paused. She breathed. She anchored. Instead of feeling helpless with her anger, she felt grounded with this part of her and what it was trying to protect. Then she wrote a response to the leader from her connected soul: “What happened to me was wrong, and I hope you can find the help you need to be a safe church. I won’t be returning. Please don’t contact me again.” Her anger was no longer the enemy but her ally in healing.
Anger is a response to a perceived threat, injustice, or frustration. According to Dr. Charles Spielberger, a psychologist who specializes in the study of anger, it is a natural and instinctive reaction that can range “from mild irritation to intense fury and rage.” Anger typically arises when we feel wronged, attacked, or powerless, or when our boundaries have been violated. It can be a response to external events (such as another person’s actions) or to internal issues (such as unresolved thoughts or memories).
While anger is a response to a negative experience, the emotion itself is not inherently negative. When we understand our anger and its purpose, it becomes a gift and an ally in the healing process. It can motivate us to change, to act, or to assert healthy boundaries. However, physician and trauma expert Gabor Maté notes that both repressed and unregulated anger lead to all kinds of diseases in the body.
The challenge is that we don’t always know what to do with our anger. It feels like a mystery, something that makes us and others uncomfortable. In our uncertainty, then, we often default to one of two extremes: repressing anger by numbing it or allowing it to explode through rage.
When we numb, we avoid feeling, which is often an involuntary way we protect ourselves from being overwhelmed. We might numb to avoid feeling any anger, especially if we consider anger unsafe. When it’s not safe to assert ourselves, set boundaries, or say no, our nervous system might shut down to survive. Or we might numb after experiencing intense anger and overwhelm because our window of tolerance has been blown out of its capacity to feel grounded. However, when we numb our anger, we inevitably also numb what are sometimes identified as “positive emotions,” such as joy, love, excitement, and even desire in general. Whatever the reason may be for numbing, the outcome is that we feel detached from our lives.
The other extreme is exploding with anger—lashing out, throwing things, screaming, hitting, or being verbally aggressive. Exploding might feel good in the moment, but unchecked anger perpetuates a cycle of harm. When we lash out, most of us feel the dissonance—that this is not who we truly are. So we must ask ourselves, What is the purpose of unleashing this anger? What am I hoping to accomplish? Does it bring healing or just short-term relief? Does my expression of anger align with my values and maintain my integrity? Or perhaps the best question might be, Is this who I want to be? These are not always easy questions to answer, but it’s essential that we wrestle through them—ideally before we explode.
Both numbing and exploding anger cause us to lose our sense of self, but truly experiencing our anger connects us more deeply to our self. It awakens us to what matters most to us. It even reveals the image of God in us because it demonstrates that we love what is right, true, and good, and that our mind, body, and soul have value and are worth guarding.
Several Scriptures help us understand what it means to experience anger and navigate it with wisdom. To the degree that you’re able, I invite you to consider anger in a holistic sense—namely, that anger can be embodied (involving our whole selves), spiritual (something we can engage biblically), and holy (set apart for good purposes). Because that’s how the Bible understands anger.
***Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger.
Ephesians 4:26, ESV
***Fools give full vent to their rage, but the wise bring calm in the end.
Proverbs 29:11
***Whoever is patient has great understanding, but one who is quick-tempered displays folly.
Proverbs 14:29
***The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness.
Exodus 34:6
***Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires.
James 1:19-20
Verses like these make it clear that anger itself isn’t sinful or unbiblical; it’s what we do with our anger that matters. We have a choice. While suppression and rage are about fear, slowing down enough to experience our anger enables us to handle it with care. That’s biblical wisdom—a holistic approach that allows us to be present with our anger so we can decide what, if anything, to do with it.
Adapted from The Shattered Soul: Restoring Wholeness and Rebuilding Your Faith After Spiritual Trauma by Colleen Ramser, LPC. Copyright © 2026. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, a Division of Tyndale House Ministries. All rights reserved.
{If you enjoyed this blog post, you might also like this episode of The Love Offering Podcast, where Rachael chats with Anjuli Paschall about how our feelings are messy, and we all have different strategies for dealing with them—usually controlling, avoiding, or indulging them. But what if we allowed ourselves to follow our feelings in prayer instead of trying to run from them? Then, we would begin to see how feelings are a doorway into intimacy with a Savior who loves us. You can listen to the episode here.}
About the Author:
Colleen Ramser, MA, is an EMDR-certified licensed professional counselor (LPC), speaker, and writer who meets Christ followers at the intersection of trauma and faith. She is a sought-after trauma specialist—particularly on issues of spiritual abuse, domestic abuse and complex trauma—and she has spent years journeying with souls in the church and within the scope of her clinical practice. Colleen also frequently speaks to pastors, ministry leaders, organizations, and other mental health professionals who desire to help survivors individually and to address systemic harm. She has appeared on podcasts such as The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill and The Slow Work. As a survivor of trauma, Colleen is a compassionate witness on the journey, bringing not only her clinical expertise but also a deep knowing of dark nights and the breath of new mercies. Colleen lives in Louisville, Kentucky, with her husband and two kids and enjoys being swallowed up by God’s beautiful landscapes and catching a good pun.
