Tuesday, July 12, 2011

On Anger. Part Deuce.

An amazing thing happened after my post last night. I felt a weight lifted off of my shoulders. I felt like God was urging me to share with you my heart, and I did, and I think it helped me so much. It was like the baby step I needed to start this process of clarifying my heart and life. I think I will continue blogging about this as I progress through this journey... it helps me, and hopefully it will help someone who reads this along the way.

By now you know about my meeting with Michelle Duggar, however I didn't really share with you some of the tidbits that really, REALLY hit home with me. The first thing she said is that she set forth early on in her marriage that there were three things she wanted to achieve in life. They were:
  1. to be a woman of God
  2. to be a lover of her husband
  3. to be a loving, joyful mommy to her children
What's funny is that earlier in our bible study I had basically written the same thing as what I would want to achieve throughout my lifetime. If I boil everything down from my days, those are the three things that matter the most to me. What has been so frustrating to me is that I have felt like there is a barrier up for me truly achieving all three of these things. I would say for the greater part of the past 2 years I have tried, but have felt like a failure. I never really could put a finger as to WHY I felt the way I did, but I knew something was amiss. Then Michelle said something later in her talk that basically made my light bulb go off. She said:

"Our anger is the wall that the enemy puts between us and our children and us and our spouse."

Ummmmm.... amazing. That thing that I couldn't put a finger on... yeah, it was the wall I was building between myself and my family. I'm not going to lie, this kind of made me sad. It was as if I was the victim of my own demise. But that's when I decided, I am going to win.

You see, after reading the Word, and after mulling this over more in my head and heart, I have realized something. Anger in and of itself is not wrong. It's a natural emotion, and if you look at the bible there are PLENTY of times that God himself was angry. It's what we DO with our anger that leads to the sin, to the wall building and to the destruction of our homes. That's the path I was on. And honestly, looking at it now, I feel like I was letting Satan win. Satan wants my marriage to be hurt. He wants me to build walls between myself and my kids. I am the biggest influencer of my home, and all that stupid devil had to do was to get me to act on my frustrations. But I stand now and say "No more." He will not win. I am reclaiming this ground. I am going to be a loving, joyful mommy and wife. My home will be a home of peace for all that enter. My kids will respect me and my authority, but they will laugh with me and will remember me as a mommy who loved them fiercely.

So, you might ask, how do I plan to do this. Well, like I said last night, I just ordered a book. It's in transit now and I can't wait to get my hands on it. I also am meditating on God's word. I truly believe that God's word will not return void (Isaiah 55:11) and that if we hide God's words in our hearts, that it is possible to not sin against Him (Psalm 119:11). Tonight I wrote down several verses that deal with anger. Some of them really convicted me, but that's probably a good thing. I thought I'd share the verses here-- not only for me to remember, but perhaps to help someone else as well.

Psalm 37:8
Cease from anger and forsake wrath; Do not fret; it leads only to evildoing.

Psalm 86:15;Psalm 103:8; Psalm 145:8
The LORD is compassionate and gracious, Slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness.

Provers 14:29
He who is slow to anger has great understanding, But he who is quick-tempered

Proverbs 15:1
A gentle answer turns away wrath, But a harsh word stirs up anger.

Proverbs 15:18
A hot-tempered man stirs up strife, But the slow to anger calms a dispute.

Proverbs 16:32
He who is slow to anger is better than the mighty, And he who rules his spirit, than he who captures a city.

Proverbs 19:11
A man’s discretion makes him slow to anger, And it is his glory to overlook a transgression.

Proverbs 22:24
Do not associate with a man given to anger; Or go with a hot-tempered man,

Proverbs 30:33
For the churning of milk produces butter, And pressing the nose brings forth blood; So the churning of anger produces strife.

Ecclesiastes 7:9
Do not be eager in your heart to be angry, For anger resides in the bosom of fools.

Ecclesiastes 11:10
So, remove grief and anger from your heart and put away pain from your body, because childhood and the prime of life are fleeting.

Ephesians 4:31
Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.

James 1:19
This you know, my beloved brethren. But everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger;

James 1:20
for the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God.

If you've made it through this post, I applaud you. For most I feel like this post may be a bit dry. But like I said last night, this is my heart. This is where I am on my life journey right now. And if nothing else, I want to mark this point in my life as a turning point. I want my boys to be able to look back and see where I reclaimed what I was tearing down. I don't want them to follow in my footsteps... I want to build a pattern that they can pass on to future generations. And so the torch relay begins....
 

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