Anger can be a good thing...if we let it be.

Barbi and I had a great discussion this past weekend while I was visiting my family. We went to Barnes and Noble and I had been wanting to re-read "'Salem's Lot" by Stephen King. I snatched it up. Barbi bought a book by a Christian author, Max Lucado, called "Fearless", about how to cast aside fear. We got started talking about horror stories and fear. I said that I can't watch horror movies, but that reading horror stories is okay for me. I need to face my fears and beat them back, I need to face darkness and not let it strike fear inside. "'Salem's Lot" was really the first horror story I ever read back when I was in high school. It freaked me out. The movie with David Soul (I was a big David Soul fan) freaked me out. But, it was a good vampire story. It captured how one man and one young boy faced fear and beat it back enough to escape their situation.

The 'situation' I'm in is something that needs to be faced, to beat back, to push it aside. In facing darkness, I am able to fight it, to not let it get the upper hand, to defy it, control it and say: "You're not going to win! I am!"

If you are facing a fearful situation, ask yourself how you can defeat it, how can this make you stronger? What lessons in developing a defensive posture can you glean from it? My situation gets me angry. Enough to yell and scream at it, to get angry with it, face it and beat it down.

Two incidents happened in my life when I was a child. One, I was molested by my first step-father over the span of 6 years. One day when I was alone at home, he came home from work and we talked about what he had done to me. He said that if I told anyone what he had done, it: 'Will be off your back.' I had no idea what those words meant, but I knew they were a threat. He left a few minutes after delivering that threat and I waited for his truck to get out of sight before I called my mom. I had determined that he shouldn't have threatened me. By doing that he made it clear what he had been doing to me was wrong. I told my mom and everything escalated from there. We got away from him, moved to another state. Our lives changed...for the better. He never touched me again.

The other time was when I was in elementary school in Colorado. A boy tried to beat me up. I was seeing a friend of mine being threatened by another boy by his putting his hands to her neck and forcing her to the ground. I said for him to stop it that he could hurt her. His friend came up to me and tried put his hand to the back of my neck and began to squeeze, ordering me to get to my knees. I was furious and refused. I kept yelling, "I will not!" I got scared, but my anger was more powerful. I refused to do what he told me to do. Finally a teacher intervened, the boys were suspended. My friend and I were only rattled, no injuries. Still, I could not believe how angry I had gotten when he tried to control me. How I refused to do what he wanted even though he was squeezing the back of my neck. I just yelled at him that no I was not going to do what he wanted.

I choose to fight this thing inside me that is nothing but a bully. My friend Julie said of this tumor, "The last cry of a dying POS." I asked her what POS was, she replied, "Piece of Sh--." I have now officially adopted POS as this damn tumor's nickname. Cancer is a bully. It sneaks up and attacks from out of nowhere and crawls away when you turn and fight back. It tries to scare you. Instead, get angry and fight back. Use that anger as a weapon. You become determined to not let the enemy win.

Anger can be a very powerful weapon in the arsenal to beat back disease...and fear.

Rock on!