Dealing with Anger

Every mom feels the rub of dealing with children who are choosing to be disobedient, rebellious, ungrateful, and irritating. It is compounded, of course, as many of us have come to painfully realize, by our own sinful, angry responses. A family is just a houseful of sinners, and for the Christian family, they are trying to live together in love to the glory of God. But, learning how to love unconditionally is not easy. It requires a humble, teachable, and repentant heart. It is definitely a growing process, and God uses this crucible of sanctification to make you more like Christ. We have to always set that before us as the goal: to be more like Christ, and to glorify Him in the choices we make for obedience as we go throughout our days. I think God uses children to show us the true condition of our hearts, and I can tell you from my own experience, it is humbling. God greatly desires to exalt the humble, but warns us that He will personally oppose the proud. So humility is a great place to find ourselves.

If I have been helped in my temptation toward anger over the years, it has been by focusing on three facts:

1. I deserve nothing but God's wrath. Most of my anger came because deep down, I didn't think I deserved the treatment that my children gave me. Actually I deserved much worse!

2. Christ died to save me when I was His enemy. I fought against Him, ignored Him, didn't thank Him for the millions of ways that He blessed me each day, and failed to worship Him as He deserved. Yet He loved me to the greatest degree.

3. If He can love and forgive me, then I can serve Him by loving and forgiving others, especially my children. Maybe that's why I love the story of the unforgiving servant so much. It pictures my heart when I am angry and unforgiving, and I don't want to be that way and disregard the loving sacrifice that the Lord has made for me. "She who has been forgiven much loves much".

God is so faithful. He never abandons His children though they struggle and fail in this area. His mercies are new each morning, and He promises grace to face each challenge that you will encounter in each new day. I like to think to myself on the morning of a new day: "God is on His throne, you are still alive, and there is always hope in Christ!" I also like to remind myself that the word "training" by definition implies practicing over and over against resistance. We are trying to train ourselves in the discipline of godliness, and our flesh resists!!! We are trying to train our children, and their sinfulness and childishness offers great resistance. But God is greater than this resistance, and he will help us overcome! "Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world." I think when all of our children were little I was at times caught off guard by how hard it seemed. But I learned to say, "That is just the way it is, and I will still choose, by God's enabling grace to love them and obey God."

If I could encourage you to do anything, it would be to enjoy your children! When they are difficult that may seem impossible. But it is a choice that has to be made, and in making it, you will be loving in a truly unconditional way. Our enjoyment of them doesn't have to be dependent on how they act. It can come from a heart of compassion that remembers that they are not our enemy. The real enemy of our souls would love to steal these days from you and have you set patterns now in your responses that will wreak havoc in your relationships, and make it harder later on to change. Ask God to help you to smile at your children, speak gently to them, give them the needed discipline, then hug and kiss them. Chase them down and tickle them, look into their eyes, tell them all day that you love them, and develop a thick skin if necessary so that you can get over the little assaults quickly and go back to being sweet....whether they deserve it or not.