anger inward.

There's this intersection between my personality and my faith that I can't figure out. It goes like this:

When I get angry with someone, but it's not worth it or feasible to bring it up, I tell myself to let it go. To love the person, and stop the record. But then something weird happens. It's as though I can't let go of the anger, so it just turns inward, and I start to think... "Hey, God, if I'm going to give up this anger, what will I have? Can you promise to love me in that place where the anger was?" It's a weird reaction, I know. I'm not even really describing it very well. It's as though my loving them hurts me. Like in giving up my anger, I become something less, something injured.

Is the problem that I'm not actually effectively purging the anger, so it just becomes anger-inward? And that's what causes the self-negativity?

Is it that I'm holding onto the anger as a way to justify myself in the relationship? And that I don't trust God to love me beyond the perceived loss of love from that other person?

Is it straight up pride? Self-pity brought on by a need to be right, so that when I let go of that, my pride is wounded?

Am I just wired oddly? Does anyone else even remotely understand what I'm saying? I've not met anyone who does. This might be a shot in the dark.

At any rate, it's something I've known, and been baffled by, for a while. And something I'm not happy about. Its presence tells me I'm missing some piece of the Truth of God's love for me, and His power. His complete ability to be the absolute center of my being, and the strength on which I do everything, loving others included.

Time to pray it out.