MISTER…Walking Resentment …. 180

 Second Chance: UPDATED

The 180 of Resentment

Not long after I arrived in April 1990, I had a dream.

I was standing in front of "Second Chance," a college bar on Wright Street in Champaign-Urbana I used to frequent—complete with live bands, beer, pool tables, and pinball machines. In the dream, I dashed inside, terrified, as if I were in imminent danger or being chased. I rushed past the crowd, straight through the kitchen toward the back door. But just before I stepped out into the dark, wet alley, a young man in a red-and-white striped t-shirt stopped me, handed me an umbrella, and said, "Here, you’ll need this."

At the very next church service I attended, a brother stood up and spoke about how the Church was like an umbrella—a covering in the storm. Around that same time, he told me, "One day, Brother Hudgens, you are going to be able to tell your testimony!"

For years, I didn't truly know what my testimony was. I knew the scripture: "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." But in my mind, I was living the exact opposite. I had known lies, confusion, and darkness. I was bound by heavy chains.

Chrissy once told me, "Tony, you are Mister walking resentment." As a substance abuse counselor, she saw right through me. She knew what she was talking about, and deep down, I instantly knew it was true, even if I couldn't fully process what it meant yet.

Years later, I stumbled across an article on "emotional obesity" and resentment. It described a person who avoids conflict, bottles up deep emotions, and tells themselves, "No one really cares about my feelings anyway, so why say them?" It explained that resentment isn't just bottled-up anger—it is the silent, unexpressed pain of withholding love. It’s easy to let conflict bubble under the surface, but holding it in creates an erratic, maddening life.

I began to see how I became that way. But then the scripture surfaced: They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony.

I realized that Christ is the express image of the Father—God's love fully expressed, broken like bread and shared with us. My testimony wasn't about "venting anger." It was about the release that comes from finally expressing love.

Looking back over the timeline of my life—from a heavy childhood, through years of walking through the mire, my dad’s death, my drunken escapades, meeting Chrissy in treatment, holding her through chemo until her passing in 1987, all the way through the dark years—I was the product of an ignorant mind and a bad spirit.

But something recently began to spring up in me. A liberation. A peace that truly passes my ability to explain out loud.

Wednesday September 16, 2026

Yesterday at the hospital for a procedure, I saw the truth of this transformation in real-time. In the middle of the mid-week hustle and bustle, I looked at the faces passing by. Some were pleasant; others carried heavy frowns. For years, my own face mirrored that dark frown—sowing bitterness and reaping it right back.

But yesterday, I intentionally looked at people and smiled. It wasn't a fake "put on" happy face; it was an effortless, pleasant countenance flowing from the inside out. "From out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks." Every single person I made eye contact with left smiling.

To go from being a "walking resentment" to carrying an effortless peace that brightens the room around you—that is the 180. That is the testimony.