Using The Angry Eyes

The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. -- Psalm 103:8

A little secret for those of you who don't know me well enough...I pretty much always have my angry eyes packed (bonus points if you know the movie reference!). I am not a person who easily contains any of my emotions, so I have always struggled with my anger boiling over before I get it contained.

After years and years of working on it, I'm miles better than I used to be and yet still with work to do. And yet, it doesn't take very long to completely fail.

I wasn't feeling good yesterday afternoon. I had a yard to mow and things to get done, but Suzanne had asked me to go sit with her at the stables while Rachel gave a horse riding lesson to a friend. After I mowed, I decided to head on over. It took about 10 minutes for my daughter and I to be completely at odds. She wasn't demonstrating what she wanted to teach properly...or safely (my biggest pet peeve out there). And then she went and got disrespectful with me and her mother.

I went to boiling very quickly...and on my way to making sure Rachel got my point I had to put my phone down. Problem is I didn't put it down as softly as I should...and it bounced on and broke my wife's Kindle.

Now, let me tell you that I am alive and thankful tonight for my wife being a Godly woman because if she wasn't I probably would at least be in traction. She would tell you that it's probably her single favorite possession in this world.

So...it only took a few seconds to screw up weeks and weeks of really concentrating on being slow to anger. That, and about $260 to replace the Kindle.

Take my word for it...if you struggle with anger, you need to double up on your efforts. There are always consequences to be had and they aren't ever good. Plus it doesn't really help with the whole "love your neighbor as yourself" instruction that Jesus gave us.