4

Anger Doesn’t Help

I was furious.

We were on a hilltop taking a rest, and Musab—who always made me mad—was going through his backpack, trying to lighten it. Musab pretended to be the Abu Sayyaf’s spiritual leader, delivering long-winded sermons on the fine points of Islam. But in reality, he was pompous and hypocritical.

As Musab pawed through his belongings that day, Martin sat nearby, a chain on his wrist. Musab carried the loose end of the chain to make double sure that Martin didn’t try to escape, even though it was obvious he would never leave me behind, and the two of us weren’t fast enough to outrun these young warriors, for sure.

Suddenly Musab picked up a bag of rice and swung it toward Martin. “Here—you carry this,” he blurted. He could not have cared less that my husband was already hauling close to fifty pounds of gear, including M60 mortar shells that never seemed to get used.

I just fumed inside. How unfair this was. My husband was already strained to the limit, he was losing weight, and these people were systematically grinding him right into the ground.

My mental state was affected by the fact that at that time I had diarrhea, and there was no place to go in private, or means for cleaning up afterward. We could see no end to our misery. Already we’d gotten our hopes up for release a couple of times, only to be disappointed.

When the rest of the group was out of earshot, I let loose my rage. “Someday that man is going to burn in hell,” I told Martin, “and I hope I’m there to see it.”

Martin sighed as he looked at me through tired eyes. “Oh, Gracia,” he replied, “someday that man is going to burn in hell if he doesn’t change. But you don’t want to be there to see it! Can you imagine the horror of being judged for eternity?”

No, of course not. I knew better than to revel in the thought of another human being’s torment. But my emotions had gotten the better of me before Martin gently corrected me.

Later that night, we talked further. It was close to Christmas, and the guys were being rowdy. They were laughing at us and making cracks, such as, “I bet you wish you were going to be home for Christmas—.” Ha ha ha.

Again I murmured to Martin, “Well, God will make all of this right someday. I hope that guy really suffers.”

“Yes, he will,” my husband replied thoughtfully. “And if anything, that should really burden our hearts for him, rather than make us happy.”

I turned away and bit my lip in contemplation.

*   *

Anger in the face of trauma is understandable. But that doesn’t make it productive. I found that as long as I blamed the Abu Sayyaf for our situation, my heart remained in turmoil. I blamed the terrorists; I blamed the Philippine military for their ineptness; I blamed the American government for not waving some magic wand to free us; I even blamed God because . . . well, he’s in control of everything, isn’t he?

Something inside us all yearns for justice and gets upset when life shows its unfair side. As Martin and I squatted around the cooking fire waiting for our portion, we would carefully watch the server pile rice on other plates but then give us only two-thirds of a cupful, solely because we were non-Filipino and non-Muslim. I wanted to scream.

Slowly I began to realize that my resentment wasn’t serving any useful purpose. The alternative, of course, was to forgive, even without the benefit of an apology from the offender. I could choose to forgive, all by myself.

As I forgave, the anger cooled down and the hurt went away.

But then a new day would dawn, and a new injustice would erupt. I would be faced with a fresh need to forgive. Any hope in a once-for-all absolution for the Abu Sayyaf was quickly disproved. This was a conscious decision I would have to make and remake as time went by.

In fact, it became a pattern. And therein lay a path back to self-control and composure.

I did not pray, “God, help me forgive Musab.” To do so would have been to dodge my own responsibility. The Lord’s Prayer says that “we forgive those who have sinned against us” (Luke 11:4, italics added). It is not something I could pass along to a Higher, More Mellow Power. The task was squarely mine, although once I chose to obey, God certainly gave me the strength to do so.

And, of course, there is a consequence in all this. Said Jesus: “If you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you refuse to forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins” (Matthew 6:14-15).

Now that I am back in America rearing three teenagers, I have daily opportunity to practice what I learned in the jungle. The offenses are not nearly so heinous, of course. But my anger must still be defused. When one of my kids says something unkind to me or someone makes a wisecrack about a decision I’ve made, I have to remind myself that I can forgive this person just as I forgave the Abu Sayyaf.

In fact, sometimes it is a bigger struggle to forgive little things than big ones. If one of my kids forgets his assignment to take the trash out to the curb on Monday morning, I have a choice to make: Am I going to fume about this for hours, or am I going to forgive my child for being imperfect?

Obviously, I have to haul out the trash either way. But on the inside, I say, I think I’ll just forgive Zachary in my heart. It’s an act of my will.

That doesn’t mean I won’t mention the incident when he gets home from school. But the tone of the words will be more constructive than accusatory.

Whenever you are hurt or wronged, your first inclination may be to lash back. Even if you thwart that urge, you may still cling to bitterness and resentment. In such a time, it’s not hard to find someone who will sympathize and reinforce the anger.

You say to your friend, “You know, so-and-so really did me dirty.”

And your friend replies, “Yes, they sure did, and you didn’t deserve that at all. I don’t blame you for being upset. I’d be mad, too.”

It feels good to hear, but it only serves to churn the spirit. It doesn’t help the cause of restoration.

*   *

I had been home from captivity about six months when the phone rang one day, and a man with a Filipino accent said, “Hello, my name is Captain Oliver Almonarez. I was the captain of the Scout Rangers who talked to you at the top of the hill.”

I was amazed. “Oh! Yes, I remember you,” I said. On the day Martin died, this was the fellow who had come over to apologize while I was waiting for the evacuation helicopter.

“I’m in Chicago visiting relatives, and I just wanted to call and wish you a merry Christmas.”

“Well, that’s very nice of you,” I said. I waited to see what he would say next.

“After all three hostages got shot that day,” he continued, “everyone was so angry with me. My superior officer yelled at me. My family, my friends, the other guys in the unit—everybody was mad at me. No one had a kind word for me. I was in a bad way.

“Then the next Monday, when you were at the Manila airport ready to fly to America, you gave your little comment to the media. You talked about your love for the Philippines, and that you were leaving a piece of your heart behind. You even thanked us in the military for trying to rescue you.

“When we all saw that you weren’t angry . . . then people weren’t angry with me anymore. I just wanted to thank you for what you said that day.”

I replied, “Well, the Lord works in people’s hearts. You’re very welcome.”

I had never thought about my public comments having a ripple effect in someone else’s life. But, in fact, they set a new tone for what had been ugly up to that point.

A year later, Captain Almonarez called again to say he was back in Chicago for another family gathering. He really wanted to meet with me, he said. A friend of his would even drive him the seven hundred miles to Kansas!

“Oh, surely you don’t want to do that,” I replied. “As it so happens, I’m going to Chicago soon to speak to my book publisher’s staff.” We arranged to meet at Tyndale’s offices.

The day came when I laid eyes again on the man whose troops had stormed the hillside that rainy afternoon, killing Martin as well as Ediborah Yap, another hostage. He walked into the room, the same broad-shouldered man about thirty years old with the handsome face and shaved head that I remembered. What he mainly wanted to tell me was that he was sorry the rescue had gone awry.

He explained his side of the story, which was that the Scout Rangers had lived in the jungle for a year and endured many hardships themselves. It certainly had not been a lark. He claimed that the American FBI had finally been able to get a cooperative courier to give Sabaya, the Abu Sayyaf’s spokesperson and negotiator, a new backpack—into which they had sewn a homing device. This told the officials our general vicinity and enabled them to start tracking us.

I didn’t spend a lot of time or energy trying to analyze his details, sorting out the what-ifs. I just listened to his story. It turned out the captain was a committed Christian. On the island of Iloilo where he grew up, he had become a believer at a Bible Baptist youth meeting.

When I stood up to shake his hand and say good-bye, I realized once again that forgiveness is a choice. Had his bullet possibly struck my husband? There is no way to know, and what good would it serve to know? Far better to forgive and move on.

If every time our anger flares we choose to forgive, eventually we will find that we are not angry anymore. We are free to focus on the future with hope and peace. As Jesus put it in Luke 6:45, “A good person produces good deeds from a good heart, and an evil person produces evil deeds from an evil heart. Whatever is in your heart determines what you say.” If the heart is rid of its anger, the outflow can be pure.