Examine your anger.....

I started to write this blog three days ago. I was thinking
about different times in my childhood and after, when
anger played such an unwanted role. When you're a
child and made to observe and try to prevent the anger
in a household, you learn just how destructive anger can
be. Over the period of the last three days, my thoughts
and feelings have changed about what I'm feeling and
thinking about for this blog, but the scriptures haven't
changed.

Then said the Lord, Doest thou well to be angry? Jonah 4:4

Be not hasty in the spirit to be angry; for anger resteth in the
bosom of fools. Ecclesiastes 7:9

I can remember more times than I can count, stepping in front
of my mother to prevent her from being hit. I can close my
eyes and be taken back in a second to hurtful comments that
were made to me (as a child!) from someone who was upset
or irritated with my mom. I had no control over what my
parents said or did, and yet I was chastised for their actions.

It's always interesting to me what makes someone angry. You
wonder if there is something that you aren't aware of. Perhaps,
they want to use you as a whipping post and make jokes with others
at your expense. Perhaps, they have interpreted something that
wasn't really there.

I can remember getting a phone call from the elementary school
when my youngest son was in his sixth week of kindergarten. I
was being summoned to the school and I didn't know why. The
teachers sat across from me and were crying. They recounted an
incident that had occurred a few hours earlier on the playground.
My sweet, little shy son who they said hadn't said an audible
word in six weeks stood up to a bully. He defended a new kid in
school and handled a situation they thought deserved some
recognition. The new kid had been called "half-breed" and
told he wasn't going to be picked to be on their football team
at recess. Mrs. Myrick said she was wrestling with what to say
and how to handle the situation, when the bully picked my
son as his first team member. She said that my son stepped
forward and said, "If Michael isn't good enough for your
team, then I'm not either." She said in an instant, the bully said,
Okay, Michael can play, too, and she didn't have to say a word.
She wanted to commend me. She shouldn't have.

I didn't see it that way. I cried because I realized that he had learned
something from a relative simply by observation. What powerful
examples we can be when others are watching. I realized that out of
my mom's weaknesses and burdens, she had taught my son to take
up for the downtrodden and persecuted. I realized that without me
even wanting to, I had become someone who liked to defend the
underdog. I can't change. For better or worse, I was molded by my
childhood and circumstances beyond my control. I had to speak up
for myself and my brother and sister. There wasn't anyone else to
do it. Sometimes now, that doesn't bode well for me. I speak up
when sometimes it's more comfortable for others for me to be quiet.
I wish I wasn't like this, but I'm a product of my childhood. I've
adapted and tried with the grace of God to be the kind of person
and parent that my kids need and will be proud of. However, I'm
human and molded from a childhood of wanting to be accepted by
others.. ANYONE. I sometimes ask my husband and children if
they can imagine what it would be like to grow up feeling like you
weren't loved by anyone. In a child's mind, you don't understand
alcoholism or adult problems....you just know that your life is
different than those around you. You wonder what can be so wrong
with an 8 year old that no one cares enough to "care"?

I sometimes wonder what it must have been like to feel loved and
supported as a child. I learned a lot of lessons by having to raise
myself and my siblings, but I look at my husband sometimes and
envy the way he must have felt supported as a child. Sometimes,
now, when others find fault with me or assume something that isn't
there..... I am transported back to that childhood. It's not fun to be
made fun of. It's not a good feeling to be misunderstood or your
words to be twisted. But, perhaps if it provides them with some
lively discussion or laughter (at your expense)...well, it was worth it
to them.

It's hard to put yourself in someones position when your life was
so far removed from the kind of life they had. But, we must try.
What is the line from South Pacific (yes, I love old movies)........

" You have to be taught /Before it's too late./ Before you are
six or seven or eight/ to hate all the people your relatives hate.
You have to be carefully taught."

Sometimes we carry what we learned from our past whether we
want to or not. That doesn't make it wrong - that doesn't make
it right. We have to be "careful" about what we hate, who we
hurt, who we make fun of, what we get angry about it. Life is
too short to be determined to hurt others.

Ask the Lord for a cool disposition even in hot circumstances.
Anger is destructive. After anger has subsided, it often leaves
a bitter residue of guilt and regret.

Have a blessed Sunday.

Here is something from Steve Goodier about anger, too.

From his book Joy Along the Way, "Getting the Anger Out"

I learned that a woman in Arkansas called her local police
department. She asked about the penalty for fighting. The
sergeant told her that she could be charged with assault and
battery. The fine was $100.

Oh, I want to beat up my sister," she said, "and I wanted to
see if I can afford it."

Anger must certainly be expressed, but this woman discovered
that there is a price for expressing it inappropriately.

You can read the rest of this piece by following the link to the
right "Life Support Systems"

Paul tells us in Gal. 5:19-21 ("works of the flesh") that he associates
anger with such terrible sins as idolatry, sorcery, drunkenness, and
blasphemy, etc.

Maybe we tend to underestimate the seriousness of anger because
we fail to recognize it as the toxic force that unleashes so many other
sins. Just as love can engender acts of mercy and kindness, anger
can produce a deadly harvest of less-than-human behavior.