~ A Matter Of Cause and Reaction ~

The plate flew across the room and smashed into a million pieces against the blue wall in the kitchen as she listened to the usual array of excuses he liked to pour out. Four in the morning, FOUR. He wasn't where he said he would be when she called, and it definitely was past 12 o'clock, the time he said he would be home.

The babies temperature was soaring up to 104 and with only one car.........well, you get the picture.

Unfortunately, the professional plate breaker was me about  20 years ago. In those days, no close object was safe from being possibly obliterated against the nearest wall.

Did I have reason to be upset? Sure. But that didn't warrant throwing baby bottles at the wall after getting out of bed for the 20th time in the night, or breaking our wedding picture out of spite after he had come home late AGAIN, or backing out of the driveway in a fit of anger and slamming into the car behind me that I didn't see.....

I used to react without thinking. My temper would flare so bad you would think that I was born a redhead. 

I'm a brunette by the way.

That, thankfully, is not even close to who I am today. What changed? Well, it was largely due to these three things that I read.

#1. James 1:19 Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters: You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry. Human anger does not produce the righteousness God desires. So get rid of all the filth and evil in your lives, and humbly accept the word God has planted in your hearts, for it has the power to save your souls.

#2. Proverbs 29:22 An angry person stirs up conflict, and a hot-tempered person commits many sins.

#3. 1 Corinthians 13: 1-7 If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.

Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.

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Basically, I made a choice. I did NOT want to be the angry, "react without thinking", bumbling idiot any longer. I wanted to be more like the definition of love. 

It didn't happen overnight. I assure you, a few more plates got broken before it was all said and done. The end result however is nothing short of miraculous. 

So what will you choose to be today. The definition of love, or a bumbling idiot?

Good choice!