Lessons from Life

"My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry" James 1:19

I had an issue earlier this week. I won't go into details, but it really made me angry. In fact, I was quite livid to be honest, and I was ready to take action and take matters into my own hands. I was all set to take care of the situation myself when I felt a prompting to not deal with it. I was angry. Attempting to fix it myself would only result in words of anger, and while I wanted the situation resolved, I didn't want to come across as an angry and nasty person. So instead I tabled my anger and frustration and gave it to my husband when he came home from work. He was able to listen to my issue and orchestrate a resolution that was peaceful and fixed the problem completely without angering or offending anyone. Thank God for my husband.

I can be a hot-head at times. I always say that's because of my Irish heritage, that I am feisty. But feisty and anger are not the same thing, and every single time I see this verse it speaks to me and I do feel a bit chastised. It is a real struggle for me sometimes to not allow myself to be angry. Thankfully, God has seen fit to give me two wonderful children to help me with my anger issue. :-)

It would be so easy to be the angry mommy. It really would. It would be simple to raise my voice to get my point across and be angry and stern with my children. It takes a whole lot more work to be patient and resolve situations with love and kind words, but it sure is effective. Just last night, I was sitting at the dinner table with the kids and Zander carelessly plunked down his very full cup of milk and of course, spilled it. Without saying a word, I very quickly threw a handful of napkins onto the milk and ran to get a towel. Zander had such a look of horror on his face and I think was on the verge of tears with his "sorry Mommy." He so wants to please Mommy these days. I simply picked up his cup, filled it back up, and when I gave it back to him I showed him the best place to put his milk cup. And of course, before I sat back down he got a kiss to show him there were no hard feelings.

You know, honey is really much more effective. When my children follow directions and behave, I want them to do it out of love, not out of fear of punishment. I want them to be the best kids they can be because they want to, and because they're proud of themselves for being such good kids. It's very much the same relationship we have with God. I choose to follow God's Word out of love, not out of fear. (Although healthy fear is good, and a subject for another post someday.) If I made decisions based out of fear, we'd never get anywhere. If I was afraid to offend people and didn't share Jesus with them because of that fear, no one would get saved. Love is what drives me, love is what moves me to share my heart with complete strangers. God is love. Can I not show the same love and mercy to my children?

I don't think I've taken a break here since I've started this blog. Have no worries, we're taking a short holiday, and I'll be back on Tuesday.