I have been praying hard these days.
My heart is just not in the right place. It has not been for a long time, well over a year. This past year has left a lasting imprint on the way I treat and perceive other people.
Before, I would say that I was a genuinely compassionate and patient person, one who rarely held grudges or placed blame. And also a person who enjoyed other people. Now I would more describe myself as someone who is impatient with others, disappointed in most people, and bitter. And I do not enjoy people. Most people, in my experience, are a source of pain and frustration. I have mostly (and in some cases, completely) lost all desire to mend any broken relationships. I have grudges I won't let go, and people who I have distanced myself from, even within my own immediate family.
And I have been praying so hard about this, and I just do not see resolution. I don't feel any hope for myself. I am confused about what is right and wrong, just and unjust. What is justified anger and what is sin? Does being a Christian mean I suppress all my disappointment, that I smooth it over and for the sake of forgiveness pretend it doesn't exist? And, if so, if I don't speak it out loud, then how do I banish it from my mind? Just because I don't say it doesn't mean I don't feel it.
But I don't want to hate people. And if I'm being totally honest (which I am right now) I am dangerously close to that extreme with most of the people in my life. Which is scary.
So what am I supposed to do? I have been praying for compassion, for specific people. And I have been praying against my own pride and bitterness. I don't know what to do besides that. And when I read the Bible I get mixed answers. When I read the prophets I think that God must have a purpose for anger in His name, but He deals in mercy and grace. So where should I fall on that wide spectrum? And did He create this in me for a purpose, or is it a weakness that I want to pass off as a gift?
I feel completely encased in sin. In my own sin and in other peoples' sin, and it feels like a trap that is pressing down on me and making life miserable. And I am not talking just the big things, it is all the small things too. It is all of the inappropriate and immature things that are said. It is the gossip. It is divisiveness. And hypocrisy. And selfishness. It is just everything. Everything about humanity, about how we sin and drag God's name through the mud every day. It disgusts me. My own sin and pride disgust me. This burdens my heart, and I do not know how to shrug it off and enjoy people in spite of sin.

I don't know if this makes sense, and I don't really even care, I'm not looking for feedback or anything. I think that my anger is most sinful when I hold onto it by fooling myself into thinking it is righteous. I can do that if I keep it in, but I can't do it if I admit to it. I want to think I am always in the right, who doesn't, but I know I'm not. I am trying to admit I am wrong in my thinking, even though I'm not all the way ready to accept that fact yet. So how can I hide it if I put it out in the open? Then people can see my sin and judge it for what it is.