Skip to main content

Anger and the Real Me

I read Jess's post over at Making Home. It struck a nerve. It was good though. Just what I needed to read about anger and short tempers....and maybe, just maybe my kids' bickering and discontentment is just a magnification of my own. {sigh}. I yell. Way too often. I wrote a Five Minute Friday about just that. But this week I was no better. I do have some anger issues. I have a temper that needs to settle. I thought it had gotten better over the last couple of years but I think I was ignoring  my problem instead of dealing with it.

Jess quoted John Piper, saying "Being someone different when you think no one else is looking is functional atheism.  God is always there."


So yes, I'm angry and I'm angry much too often. I'm angry about the children and their childish complaints. I get angry when things don't go the way I planned. I get angry when things don't go my way. Even when I'm angry but I don't let it show, when I'm just grumbling on the inside, it's still wrong. I get angry when I'm afraid that, despite my best efforts, everything will turn out a wreck. And I'm not just angry but I'm full of discontent and complaints about what is. 

I think I sometimes forget that if I want to be who I want to be then I need to work at it. I need to consciously acknowledge my problem, confess it, pray over it, lean in hard to my God, and actively choose different behavior.  Actively choose. Because I always have a choice.

James 1:19-20 This you know, my beloved brethren. But let everyone be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger; for the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God.
Ephesians 4:26-27 Be angry, and yet do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not give the devil an opportunity.
~
I can choose to deep breathe and prayer over frustration and clenched fists. 
I can choose to speak kind words to my husband instead grumbling complaints.
I can choose to stop and address my son's heart instead of snap at him for his behavior to change.
I can choose to remember that these boys are children and they WILL behave childishly at times.
I can choose to preserve their little self esteem (and our precious relationship) by keeping my tongue still when I'm frustrated.
I can choose to take that frustration to God, since HE can take it and only He can truly change a heart. 

So I will. I'm choosing behavior and thoughts that will honor my God and my family. I'm choosing to go to Him. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Hello and Welcome. Just a note on comments. I leave them open but I ask that comments be respectful. To me, to God and to His word. I will remove anything that isn't.

Popular posts from this blog

This Harsh World, The Butterfly Effect and The End of the Story

These last few weeks have been hard to process. I feel overwhelmed with the realities of this world. The reality that this is a hard and sad, broken place. The shootings in Aurora, the continued genocide in Zimbabwe , the attacks on men standing firm in what they believe , the selling of people and the list can go on and on. I strongly believe with all that I am that we serve a Good and Merciful God. And yet in times like this I can doubt and question where is His goodness when we need it most. I'll never cease to be amazed at how my God answers me. It was all over everywhere. As I questioned and shook my fists and asked "why?" and " how could you let this be?", He gently answered me over and over again .  As I asked these questions with tears in my eyes, He reminded me of the book I had finished on the beach a few weeks ago. This man full of God given wisdom wrote: There is but one good; that is God. Everything else is good when it looks to Him and...
4 comments
Read more

Expectations

Five minute Friday where we write for 5 minutes, link up and read (encourage and compliment) the person linked before us. We write for 5 minutes without editing. Visit The Gypsy Mama and join in. Expectations.. . Go Expectations kill relationships. I can't think of one relationship that doesn't suffer because of expectations. Sure, we have to have them to some degree. We expect safety and civility. We have higher expectations of respect and love. And even higher ones of knights in armor and happy endings. But really, what would happen if we let all the expectations go? If the ones we loved didn't have to live up to some story or image we built up in our heads? What if we took each interaction on it's own merit. What if we loved the best way we knew how and stopped letting ourselves be disappointed with how things turned out, or how they didn't. Or maybe we could adjust what we expect. Maybe we expect the pain and the struggle. No one said there wasn't...
4 comments
Read more