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Throwing a Tantrum

You might be assuming by the title of this blog that I will be talking about 2 and 3 years old kids, but I'm not.  I'm talking about me.  Yep. You got that right.  Me.  I threw a pretty good tantrum a couple of weeks ago.  I was trying to pack up to leave for a weekend away and had gone to the laundry room to throw in a quick load of clothes I needed for the trip.  When I opened the washer, it was full of clothes.  I opened the dryer, which was also full of clothes. I then looked at the laundry basket and someone had taken MY clothes out of the dryer and thrown them in the laundry basket without me knowing it.  The clothes had not only been sitting there wadded up in the basket, but our lovely cat had decided that a basket full of clean clothes was the perfect place to nap.  While this is not the first time for this kind of incident in our home, I decided that day that it was to be the last time it would ever happen.  I started yelling at whichever kid was close enough.  "WHO took my clothes out of the dryer?  And WHOSE clothes are in the washer and dryer???"  I kept on with my rant.  "It's not even your Laundry day!"

And you thought I was so mature.

Then today I had another opportunity to show my maturity.  My husband came in from the garage and informed me that the freezer door had been left ajar and the freezer was defrosted, along with most of the food in the freezer. In the process of pulling the food out of the freezer, I discovered that a brand new bag of flour that was put in the freezer last week, was getting soggy from the moisture in the freezer.  I pulled the bag of flour out and as I got it out of the freezer, the bag started disintegrating in my hands.  Before I got the flour to a safer and more stable place, the bag broke and flour began spilling out all over the floor, me and the counter.  You can imagine my reaction.  I looked around at the white mess all over my floor from the kitchen sink to the garage door and wondered how this icky job of cleaning out the freezer had suddenly become so much worse.  I groaned.  I decided to finish getting the food out of the freezer, then I would deal with the flour mess. In the meantime, the child who had left the door ajar emerged to go to work.  Great.  What timing. This was his fault and now he has to go to work.  All of the straws on my camel's back suddenly broke and I yelled.  Yep.  Yelled.  It really helped too.  He still had to go to work and I still had to clean up the mess.  Off he went to work and my oldest son came to help me get the mess cleaned up.

I pondered my tantrum.  As with most tantrums, fussing and yelling did not accomplish anything. There was still a mess and it still had to be cleaned up.  And why did it get to me?  What was it that caused the breaking point and why didn't I handle that situation with more grace? "What is causing the quarrels and fights among you? Don’t they come from the evil desires at war within you?"James 4:1 The simple answer is that I am a selfish creature.  Things didn't go my way and I didn't like dealing with the consequences.  And just what did God think of my escapades both days?  Was he nodding his head at me and agreeing that I had every right to be so angry?  Was he cheering me from the sidelines and saying, "You go girl!"?  I think not.

It occurred to me that God doesn't throw tantrums when I mess up either.  Yes, he will correct me and sometimes gently nudge me in the way I need to go,  Sometimes he has to use his rod to give me a more pointed nudge, but he doesn't yell, scream, stomp his feet, or belittle me.  He has already told me in his word where tantrums leads,

Refrain from anger and give up your rage;  Do not be agitated--it can only bring harm.
Psalm 37:8 
A wise man is cautious and turns from evil, but a fool is easily angered and is careless.
Proverbs 14:6

 It can become easy to justify our anger, our rages, our bad moods and throw the blame everywhere else except...on ourselves.  Learning to walk with more grace each day...

My dearly loved brothers, understand this: Everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger,for man’s anger does not accomplish God’s righteousness. James 1:19-20

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