(Finally I am actually writing a personal blog post...no review of movies or products :)
Well, I have to give a little background before I share what happened to me a couple of weeks ago...this is actually one of those "Full Circle" kind of stories if you want to call it that... I kind of think of it as a redemption story in many ways :)
I am guessing I have probably written about my struggle with anger on this blog, but maybe not. It took me a long time to say out loud that I struggled with anger... Anger is such an ugly word, and when I think of anger I normally think of it as a struggle for men more than women. Plus, I didn't know at the time many women who were at least admitting to struggling with anger... Who really wants to say,
"Hi, I'm _____ and I'm Angry" NOT ME.
Anger just didn't fit with my sweet personality (OK, you probably think I struggle with pride too after saying I am sweet, but I only use sweet to describe my personality...I love people and I love to talk to everyone). My "sweet" personality only helped to disguise my anger problem for a long time...most people never had me pegged as a person who deals with anger. Shoot, I didn't have me pegged as an angry person. It is funny how blind a person can be.
I am going to have to shorten the details of my struggle with anger for the sake of the few that may read this post...I guess in the
bloggy world, long posts are not good. I hope to keep writing about my journey with anger more on this blog in the future, but for the sake of this post I will say this.... God opened my eyes to my struggle with anger about 10 years ago, and through Christ I now would now not classify myself as a person that struggles with anger (at least chronically). I may get angry and respond in the wrong manner, but again through Christ I feel like I have been set free (at least for the most part :) from anger.
OK, so how does anger relate to spilt milk??? I so wish I could tell you the whole story of my journey to freedom from anger, but for now I will just share what you need to know for my blog post title to make sense. Before I really began my journey with God to be set free, little things could send me into a verbal tirade... Not with swear words, but with loud, mean-spirited comments. (Confession: I want to stop writing this post...it feels bad to see myself in this light, but the truth is what sets us free...Jesus is Truth, so I will continue) Sadly, my anger surfaced most with my kids (and Hubby)...Actually, it was through my children that God opened my eyes to my anger problem, and He began setting me free.
I remember one time one of my children spilled juice (I think it was red) all over my floor. It was an accident, but I just didn't feel that way. I don't remember what I said, but I just remember being so frustrated and angry that I just started yelling at the child and blaming him for spilling the juice... The more I cleaned up the juice, the more I became more frustrated and just keep yelling at my child. My child was scared and I know that I crushed his spirit.
It seemed my anger was brought out in many situations like the one above... Time and time again I would lose it because I was frustrated with the situation. For a brief minute, I would think I would feel better if I just let it all out... For a brief second it would feel good, but after a few minutes had passed I always felt horrible about the way I reacted. Sometimes, I would cry and pray for forgiveness, and other times I would seek out the person I yelled out so I could apologize... The cycle was never ending... I wanted to get out of the crazy cycle....One day I did...
One of the most amazing things about my journey to freedom from anger is that I can't even tell you how it happened. All I know is that it began with a honest admission to God (and many others) that I had an anger problem, and the rest is kind of a mystery to me about how I was set free, but I was (still am in the process). God is faithful!!!
So fast forward about 8 years... I think it was last week that I was sleeping in, and one of my boys run into the bedroom to tell me that "Terminator" (my youngest) spilled milk all over the floor. I even think my child told me that it was the whole gallon of milk...OK, that got me a little freaked out, so I calmly (well sort of calmly) get up to survey the damage. As I round the corner, I see Terminator holding what is left of the cracked gallon of milk in his little hands, and what was not still in the milk jug was all over my kitchen floor. How would I respond? That was the question...
I took a deep breath, and took action. I took the broken jug from Terminator and had him move away from the milk. About that time my mother in law came in (she had stayed the night) and she asked how she could help. I asked her to get some towels from my closet so I could sop up the milk. OK, I could give you the step by step, but let's just say I cleaned up all the milk with the towels, and all was well again. No yelling, no verbal tirades, no making my boy feel like a failure for spilling the milk.
My story ends with my Terminator coming over to me wondering if he was going to get in trouble (I am sure my other boys had him convinced he was in trouble). I asked him if it was an accident and he told me it was. I then asked Terminator if he gets in trouble for accidents, to which he told me no, but I think he was still not sure. I assured him we don't, and he walked away a happy, but milk sticky kid.
It was not long after that God reminded me of where I have come in my struggle with anger...10 Years ago, things would have went a lot differently with the spilled milk... Redemption...full circle...whatever you want to call it. God did the impossible, but He is in the business of doing the impossible, so I never should be surprised, but thankful... Praise be to God!!!
OK, I ended up writing a long post anyway... Hope you made it to the end of the post :)
Blessings Friends...
