Sid Roth - Are You Struggling with Anger and Rage? with Lisa Bevere
Sid Roth: Her rage caused her to pick up her son to slam him against the wall. Next on this edition of It's Supernatural! Centuries have come and gone offering wisdom and understanding throughout the ages. Today there should be nothing beyond one's power to discover. And yet the strange, unusual and mysterious world of the supernatural defies understanding. Stay tuned for a unique and powerful investigation into a curious undiscovered universe only on It's Supernatural!
Sid Roth: Hello. I'm Sid Roth, your investigative reporter and rage is the rage. That's what it says in this edition of USA Today that I've been reading here. And let me read this to you. It says, "Two shoppers in a Westport, Connecticut supermarket get in a fist fight over who should be first in a newly opened checkout lane". "A Continental Airline flight returns to Anchorage after a passenger allegedly throws a can of beer at a flight attendant and bites the pilot". "A Reading, Massachusetts father beats another father to death in an argument over rough play at their son's hockey practice". And "A high school baseball coach in Hollywood, Florida turns himself in to face charges that he broke an umpire's jaw after a disputed call". What is going on? Lisa Bevere, you look so calm and peaceful, and relaxed. Tell me the worst moment of anger and rage in your life.
Lisa Bevere: Well you know, you alluded to it at the beginning of this show. I think people that have problems with rage and anger will continue in that until it costs them something. And my time of when it cost me something was when I almost took my son and slammed him into the wall. But what I need to talk about is what built up to that. I mean, it's so funny, Sid, I don't remember not being angry. I think I was kind of born angry. I'm half Sicilian, I'm French, I'm Apache Indian and I'm English. I mean, they stole my land, I've got Mafia in my blood. Of course, I'm going to be a little ticked off. And I, you know, kind of always had this kind of passionate thing going on. And my husband and I would have encounters, and I would say, you know, if you would just be perfect I would not be upset. So it's imperfect people that make me mad. I don't have a problem with anger. And I would never really admit to having this issue.
Sid Roth: It's always the other person.
Lisa Bevere: That's right.
Sid Roth: If they were not, and that's why we have so much divorce because if they'll change everything is fine.
Lisa Bevere: That's right.
Sid Roth: I'm perfect.
Lisa Bevere: If this person hadn't tried to cut in front of me in the checkout line I wouldn't have had to beat them up when they were, you know, trying to cut in front of me. If everybody else is perfect, if everybody leaves me alone, and when we don't take responsibility then we continue in something until we finally have an encounter where we have to face the truth, and that became the major issue for me. And I had one son for a while, and then I had my second child. And when I had my second child my life changed. I mean, one child is an accessory. You take it out, dress it up and it behaves well. When I had my second son, I thought, what have I done? I will never get anything accomplished for the rest of my life. I'll never brush my teeth before noon. And my husband would come home every day from work and see me and see this household, and see the babies, and say, "What did you do all day"? And I'd say, "I don't know. I haven't watched TV. I talked on the phone to a couple of people that called wanting counseling and saying they're going to commit suicide, and I'm offering to join them. John, don't bother me right now". I mean, I am just really losing it with having these small kids at home and just feeling so frustrated, like I can't get anything done. Well my firstborn son who had always been so perfect about taking naps, when I had my second child he refused to take naps. And so I'd put him down in his bed and he'd get off, I'd put him down in his bed and he'd get off. And one day I just reached this breaking point. After about three months of this, I just snapped. I thought, this child must be made to stay on his bed. And he came running down the stairs, and I came running up to meet him, grabbed him, and I no longer saw a child, I saw an enemy. I saw this is the one that keeps me from getting anything done. And I went storming into his room, looking around thinking, what can I do to make him stay on the bed? And I lifted him up eye level, and I heard a very logical sounding voice say to me, "You need to take this child, slam him into the wall and put him down on the bed and then he'll know to stay". And you know what happened, Sid, I lifted him up, I was getting ready to slam him into the wall.
Sid Roth: Stop for one second. If she had done that, she could have been one of those people I was reading about in the USA Today newspaper.
Lisa Bevere: That's right.
Sid Roth: You could have easily been one of those statistics.
Lisa Bevere: That's right.
Sid Roth: That close.
Lisa Bevere: That's right. But God did something so amazing in that moment. When I was holding my son's face up in front of my face, I no longer his face, I saw my own. I saw my own as a child. See, I grew up in a very dysfunctional household and I had made myself a promise that I would never treat my children the way I had been treated when I was raised. But here I was getting ready to do the very thing I said I'd never do to my son, and it broke me. I looked at him and I said, "Addison, I'm so sorry I scared you". I said, I put him gently down on his bed. I went downstairs. I threw myself on the floor and started to cry, and I said, "You know what, it's not my husband. He's not here. It's not my heritage. It's not my parents. It's not my friends. It's me. I have a real problem with rage. And I wept and I cried, Sid, because I didn't think I could ever be different. It seemed to be so intermeshed into my personality. It had been the way I had always been since I was two years old. I couldn't remember anything being different. And here I was a 29-year-old woman thinking my life is living on the edge of devastation and I was afraid. Yes, I had stopped that time, but what about another time? What about a month from now? What about a year from now? And it scared me, and it broke me. And I wept and I cried until there was just nothing left, and a stillness settled over me. And when that stillness settled over me, I heard the Spirit of God say to me, "Because you're no longer justifying this anger, I'll take it out of your life". See, I always made excuses for it. I always blamed it on other people. And what you justify you buy. You say, I have earned the right to be this way because of what's been done to me. And you know what? Everybody has gone through a lot of pain. It is hard to find a functional family any more.
Sid Roth: You know, you used the term that you were dysfunctional.
Lisa Bevere: Absolutely.
Sid Roth: In other words, your family wasn't functioning the way it was supposed to function. However, she then made a statement just about everyone's family is not functioning the way it's supposed to function. There's something wrong going on in society. There's something really bad happening. But until you come to grips with the fact that there's only one person that you can change, that's yourself, you're going to remain sick. But there is a solution. And we'll be back right after this word, and you're going to find out the most wonderful things that happened, and if they could happen to Lisa, they can happen to you. We'll be right back.
Sid Roth: Hello. Sid Roth your investigative reporter. I'm here with Lisa Bevere and we're dealing with a subject that is out of control. Rage is the rage, literally, people's anger. Lisa looks so calm and cool, but there was a moment in your life where you took your son and literally, if you weren't stopped you would have slammed him against the wall. He could have died and you would have been in prison right now. But you said that you came from a family that wasn't functioning right, dysfunctional.
Lisa Bevere: Correct.
Sid Roth: And I made the statement, just about every family unfortunately today is dysfunctional in certain areas. But this is life critical. I mean, she loved her son. Tell me about your background. How did you get this way?
Lisa Bevere: Well you know, Sid, talking about dysfunctional families is such a common thing now. Like you said, it's almost everywhere. But my parents were divorced twice. My father is an alcoholic and I grew up with rage. And a child will, they will learn what they live, and it's what I had always seen. It's what I had always experienced.
Sid Roth: And you know what, you probably said at one point, I'm never going to be like my father.
Lisa Bevere: Absolutely. But we are destined to repeat what we don't forgive in our parents. And you know, I resented the fact, because I'd go to other people's houses and think, wait a minute, they're not all screaming and yelling, and shoving, and you know, this kind of tension in their house. But you know what, I did not let God get involved in that portion of my life until I had a crisis. And also another thing I was a little bit upset about, at five years old, I lost an eye to cancer. And I felt very violated, very upset about that, very vulnerable growing up being made fun of at school, you know, called one-eye, called Cyclops, that kind of thing, being very self-conscious. And so those two things, it was just like a precious cooker inside of me.
Sid Roth: Just a little aside, I'm curious, did you have fear of death when as a five-year-old, you had cancer in the eye?
Lisa Bevere: You know, this is strange. I had this kind of mindset. I thought everybody was wrong. I thought I shouldn't even have even lost the eye. I thought they had misdiagnosed me. I was in a denial kind of mode. That's the way I did it. So no, I didn't hide from fear of death. But I was definitely felt like my parents should have protected me, that they shouldn't have allowed that eye to be taken out. I didn't understand that they had done that to protect me, you know, to prevent me from dying at that point. But no, I had a lot of unresolved anger and not having the skills. I mean, we all get upset, but we need to know what to do with when we get upset. You got to have the skills that you need that when you come into conflict with a person or a situation that you feel like you can't control, you don't get out of control. And that is what happens when people have problems with rage. If they come into conflict with somebody and they feel like they cannot control the situation, they make everything become out of control and chaotic, so they're the only person in control. That's what they do, they have a controlling method of that way. And I was constantly living under that and then I propagated that in my household. My husband says that when I was upset all the animals in the whole area would run away. I broke plates. I broke windows. I threw things. I called names.
Sid Roth: You broke windows? Tell me.
Lisa Bevere: I, one time my husband and I were having a major disagreement and I decided I wasn't going to talk any more because I was so afraid if I was going to open my mouth I would not be, you know, certain to be able to retrieve the words I said. And so I was washing a dish and he decided, okay, I can't persuade her to talk, so I'm going to try to provoke her. And he said something that worked. And all of a sudden before I knew what I had done, I took the plate that was in my hand and I Frisbeed it as his head, and he ducked, missing decapitation, and it went out, shattering the picture window of our apartment. And my husband just looked at me and he said, "I cannot believe you just broke that window". And I said, "I can't either. I can't either. I don't even know how that plate got airborne". And see, when you have a problem with rage you will live in a constant state of regret wishing you hadn't said things that you said, wishing you hadn't done things that you did. And when you have a problem with the rage, you create an atmosphere of suspicion and distrust where there should be intimacy and trust. And most people that have a problem with rage, they have learned how to contain it at home, they do it. At work, they don't. They save it for home for their loved ones. They save it for the people that they care about the most.
Sid Roth: That doesn't even make sense. The people that you love the most, you let out your frustration, I guess because they're the only people you can let it out with.
Lisa Bevere: Well they're the only ones we've been able to get away with letting it out with. But you know what, it is creating an entire dysfunctional society. We have a whole society that is living in fear and living in terror. You know, anger is rooted in fear and these people feel like somebody has cheated them, somebody has mistreated them and they are going to get their payback. And you know what's so interesting is anger actually means momentary displeasure. And anger in itself is not wrong, but most people don't stop with anger. They go to something called rage.
Sid Roth: What is the difference between anger and rage?
Lisa Bevere: Rage looks for a target. Rage is the next level up. Anger says, okay, Sid, you know what she said to me, it really upset me and I'm displeased. But I'm going to turn away from you for a moment. I'm going to say, what is important here? Why am I upset? So I can be reconciled to you. Rage says, all right, you upset me, I'm going to hurt you, I'm going to make you pay for what you did. Rage is punitive. Anger is saying, this is important to me. It's a momentary displeasure. You know, God gets angry, but he doesn't exercise rage. We're always told to be angry, it's okay.
Sid Roth: It's okay to be angry?
Lisa Bevere: It's okay to be angry, but it says be angry and sin not. Be angry and don't take it to the rage level. Don't take it to the punitive level. Don't take it to the wrath level where you're vengeful. Because whenever you take it to those levels, you go to the unhealthy.
Sid Roth: Well how can you not take it to that level? How can you supernaturally stop that pattern so that your marriage doesn't end up as a statistic? How can you do that? We're going to find out when we come back right after this.
Sid Roth: Hello. Sid Roth your investigative reporter here with Lisa Bevere. But I want to find out who our guest is next week. In the control room, Janie Duvall, who's our guest?
Janie:Sid, you'll be interviewing a woman by the name of Sharon Allen. She was an orthodox Jewish woman and her, she wanted her husband to convert to Judaism, and he had no problem with that. But then he had to say that he didn't believe in Jesus. And he told her, there's no way I can say that I don't believe in Jesus to convert to Judaism. And she thought, how could he believe in this mythology about Jesus? So she went into her scriptures and she started wanting to prove to him that there was no way that Jesus could have ever been the Messiah. But as she started looking through the scriptures, she found, as she called it, that man, throughout the scriptures. And finally, she starting going to rabbis and famous international deprogrammers to try to convince her that she was wrong. But then she found out that she wasn't wrong.
Sid Roth: I'm looking forward to that. I'm here with Lisa Bevere, and Lisa, anger is out of control. Rage is out of control. There are people ending up prison. There are people destroying their lives, destroying their loved ones. There's road rage. There is computer rage. There's airline rage. There is rage all over the map. How do we get out of this vicious cycle?
Lisa Bevere: Well the number one thing is you first have to take responsibility and that's what happened to me. You have to say, all right, I have a problem. I'm going to take responsibility, and responsibility means the ability to respond. When we no longer make excuses, when we no longer blame, when we no longer justify, when we no longer say it's because it's the way I was raised, when we finally come to that place where we say it doesn't matter anymore what I came from, I'm not going to live subject to my past and I'm going to go forward. We take that responsibility, first step. Second thing we have to do, you've got to step back from something and you have to answer the question to yourself, why am I so upset? What is it that is so upsetting to me? You've got to step back from what's going on, take that moment to reconnect and be slow to speak, quick to listen and slow to wrath. Just slow it down. Number three, you've got to learn from your mistakes. You don't beat yourself up with it. Most people when they make mistakes they just constantly beat themselves up with it and then they constantly make excuses, and they justify it. You've got to learn from your mistakes and you've got to own up to them, which means you have to confess it. Most people, they apologize. I say, Sid, you know I am really sorry I said that to you but you know you really upset me when you said such and such. An apology is actually a defense of something. Confession is totally different than apology. Confession says, I'm sorry, I was wrong. I should never have said that. I should never have done it. It takes it all off the other person and it gives you the total place where you are no longer a victim, but you become a victor, you ownership of what's going on.
Sid Roth: But what about the fact that that other person has triggered your anger and rage? If that other person didn't that, you wouldn't have been triggered. How do you handle that?
Lisa Bevere: Well we just have realize...
Sid Roth: Do you tell the other person, you better say you're sorry for what you did?
Lisa Bevere: Well that's what I did for years and it didn't work. You know, all you can really do is take care of yourself. And what you have to do is you have to say, I'm going to take responsibility for my response. I'm not going to say, Sid, you made me do that. I'm going to take responsibility for my response. And when you take responsibility for your response then you start to realize, what is it that's really upsetting me here? Because usually what you're reacting to is not really what you're upset about. Usually you're upset about something at a much deeper level. I had some issues, and I'm going to talk about those in a minute, that I would react to my husband in disagreements and fights because of a deeper level issue that had really nothing to do with what my husband were going on right there. But it reminded me of something deeper. Also, you've got to learn to say things so that you can be heard. And if you want to be heard when you talk to somebody, you have to say it the way you would want to hear it. It's that simple. If you want to be heard, say it the way you'd want somebody to say it to you. And you've got to just, you know, be able to respect other people, slow down and then you've got to, I believe you've got to involve God in it, because we live–
Sid Roth: Without God being involved in it, would you have gotten out of the mess you were in?
Lisa Bevere: No, no. Because I think the guilt would have been so heavy on me that I think only God can be the one that steps in and says, I know what you almost did and yet I love you, I forgive you. The Bible says when we confess our sins, God not only forgives us, but he heals us and I needed a healing. Because see, there's broken parts in people's lives, that's why they do these things, that they need a healing if they're going to ever be able to be constructive with disagreements and conflict. And so God did that for me. And I want to kind of share that with you. You know, my husband and I, we would have disagreements and I would always store everything forward with him. And so when we fought, we didn't just fight about that, we fought about everything forward. But there was always, I kept a distance from my husband, kind of kept him at arm lengths. And he would say to me, Lisa...
Sid Roth: Why did you keep him at arm's length?
Lisa Bevere: Well he would say, I feel like you do that to me. And I didn't know why until about a few years ago I had an encounter that I realized why. My father, as I mentioned, is an alcoholic and I love my father, and I wanted my children to experience the parts that I had remembered about my father in childhood. And I would bring my kids down every holidays and we'd get to spend time with him. Usually he'd be drunk, but this time we were so excited. We told him we were coming. We were thinking it's going to be different. We drove down a couple hours, loaded up the kids and it was pouring down rain. We get out of the car. We knock on his front door and there's no answer. We go around to the back door and there's a little sign on the window and it says, "Sorry I had other plans".
Sid Roth: That must have crushed you.
Lisa Bevere: It devastated me. I cried. I came back to the car. I was embarrassed. I was ashamed in front of my children. They didn't understand why Grandpa didn't want to see them when he hadn't seen them in a year and a half. We drove all the way back home. I cried. A couple days later, I got before God in prayer and I was listening to a song while I was praying, and the song's words said, "You're a father to the fatherless". And when I heard that, for the first time, Sid, I felt totally fatherless, totally rejected. And when I was crying, it was amazing, because God sees our pain differently than we see it. God said to me, "Lisa, when you have been totally rejected by your father then you're in a position to be totally adopted by me. Only adoption negates the spirit of rejection". And he said, "Now nothing stands between us". And when I heard that, it wasn't like he said, I feel sorry for you. Your dad is so bad. He just said, "You're mine. You're all mine. Your husband needs something he can go to his father. But you need something you come directly to me". And immediately Sid, all the pain left, all the anger left, all the shame left, and I felt so connected with God, and I felt like my father owed me nothing. I didn't have any, you know, he needs to apologize to me or he needs to be different. I felt sorry that he didn't have the involvement with my children, but I was free.
Sid Roth: That was the word that was coming to me. She was free. What would you pay to be free? You may not be in a prison right now, but are you free? Lisa, I must ask you this question. This was a lifelong, chronic problem of anger leading to rage.
Lisa Bevere: Yes.
Sid Roth: How are you today?
Lisa Bevere: Oh it's been 11 years since I had my second son and I'm a totally different person. My husband seems more than happy to travel with everybody and testify because he is of most people, the most happy.
Sid Roth: I'm sure.
Lisa Bevere: But you know, what you said, you said a lifelong thing, rage is a habit, and a habit is something that we do without thinking.
Sid Roth: Like driving, it's automatic.
Lisa Bevere: Right, exactly. The way you have to break that hold is you have to undo a habit and you have to do, undo habits the same way you form habits, which is one day at a time, one hour at a time, one minute at a time. That's why we have to think before we talk. I think if people don't have encounters where they can say God, you know what, I need you to go in to those places that are bleeding and wounded in my life and heal those areas so that I can process things differently. If we don't get those things dealt with, then your only dealing with the fruit and not going after the root of the issue.
Sid Roth: I'm so glad that God spoke to Lisa and took, met her at her point of need. Can you image her father too busy to see his grandchildren? And then she experienced something that intellectually she knew, but she didn't really believe it for her, and that was that God loved her no matter what. But there is something separating you from the love of God. It's your sins, it's your wrong actions, and it's your lying and you're stealing, and your abortions, and your homosexuality, and your drugs, and going to mediums and psychics, and new age. These are the things, and having other things that are your God: money, possessions, even family. But God is so good and he says, I'm not a respecter of persons. I love you as much as anyone who has ever lived and I'm going to love you no matter what you do. But your sins are separating my love. You can't receive my love. So if you believe that Jesus died for your sins and you say, God I'm sorry, forgive me, I believe the blood of Jesus washes away my sins, God be my father, be my father. God, I need you. I need your love. I want nothing separating me from your love. I need your shalom, your peace, your completeness. Oh God, I want to experience your love right now. If you will do business with God right now in your words, he's listening to you, he's real, he loves you, he cares for you and this is your moment. This is your moment to know God and to experience his love. There's nothing this world has to compare to that love.