Men and Their Emotions

As the rest of our country is, I am so overwhelmed with sadness over the massacre at Virginia Tech. I grieve for those parents who suddenly lost their precious children at the hands of this angry gunman.

In this morning's paper and on the web news sites, there's lots of discussion about the alleged killer, Cho Seung-Hui. He was described as a "shy, quiet type seething with rage at unspecified tormentors." (Foxnews.com) In a creative writing class, his professor referred Seung-Hui to the counseling center because of the violent images in the papers he wrote.

His story prompted me to think of men and their emotions. How we men often handle our emotional struggles so poorly, at times at the terrible expense of others -- as we witnessed this week in Blacksburg, VA.

While I was working out in the gym on the day of this national tragedy, I read an article in Newsweek about men and depression. It mentioned how depression has seemed to be more of a problem with women than men. However, researchers are sensing this statistic to be skewed since men are much less likely to admit they're depressed than are women. We men tend to be lone rangers, wanting to tough it out and not admit weakness and struggles.

In my own experience, and in ministering to many people over the years who have battled depression, I've found that the blues are often caused by a lack of processing anger appropriately. On and off for several years I've had bouts of depression. So often I couldn't understand why. But in retrospect, it seemed to often be caused by frustration and anger that I had not talked about with others. Rather, I just stuffed it.

In 2003 I was out of work for nearly 5 months. It was extremely frustrating and a bit scary. I remember one time when we came home from church and I blew up at my family for a minor incident. After apologizing to them and asking for forgiveness, I thought later, "Where did all that anger come from?" Probably from some pent up frustration and pain over not yet finding a job. Like so many other men, I made the mistake of living in denial about my anger and trying to push through it on my own instead of talking it through and praying about it with others.

What a different world it would be if we men would be honest about our emotions and seek help -- either through a counselor, a close male friend or a small group -- in admitting the depression, anger, lust or whatever else is boiling inside of us. And then let Jesus heal our emotional pain and channel this energy in positive directions.

How much pain and tragedy could be prevented if men sought healthy ways to process and defuse these volatile emotions. Rather than letting the devil take over us in our rage, what a difference we'd make in our families and work relationships if we men allowed Jesus Christ to control our emotions.

I think that a world of men with Spirit-controlled emotions would be one with much more peaceful families. Better work places. And less tragedies like we witnessed with horror at Virginia Tech.

Jim