February 16, 2007
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Anger
I’ve recently learned in my Bible study class that God had a lot to say about anger.
James 1:19 says in part “But everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger.” Proverbs has some really good verses, like 14:29, “He who is slow to anger has great understanding, But he who is quick-tempered exalts folly.”
It made me start analyzing why I feel anger to begin with and I found that most of the time it’s not even anger. It’s another emotion that just comes out as anger. Like disappointment, frustration or jealousy or even envy. And the rest of the time it’s just plain being mad at myself for allowing whatever got to me to happen to begin with.
If it hadn’t been for anger, I think my relationship with my mom would have been 1000 times better those last 5 or 6 years. I was angry with so much when it came to her. And looking back on it now, it seems that if I had just taken the time to really think about it, so much of it could have been avoided. I had leftover anger because of childhood things. Well, not really. It seems now that most of that was anger at myself because I was too chicken to discuss those things with her. Even knowing that she would have probably claimed amnesia about some of it, just talking about it would have helped us both. And then there was the frustration of knowing that she was being taken advantage of by another person and she wouldn’t let me fix it. I should have just prayed about it and let God handle it, but back then I was too stubborn for that. (Have I mentioned that I’m somewhat of a control freak?) I found myself a lot of times being angry because of her health issues, when most of that was just fear about losing her. So much wasted time being angry.
In the job that I do, taking care of a couple of ladies with handicaps, I find that if I allow it, I can stay quite angry with one of them. She tells lies almost daily, and is very manilulative and sometimes pretty darned defiant. But with what I’m now learning, I don’t react the way I used to with her. I know that if I let the things she does affect me on a personal level, I will react totally unprofessionally. But if I sit back and just be quiet and let God do the talking, we have a much happier home. He has helped me so much with my job.
I’ll be 50 this year and I can’t believe it took me this long to see something so simple. And I can only thank God that I finally have heard His word and that he has given me the ability to understand it so clearly and put it to use in my life. He is awesome! And I know that He has already forgiven me for being so foolish for so long.
