"Anger is only one letter away from danger...," I keep trying to remind myself of that, and yet, lately I have noticed that my anger has reared its ugly head again. I would be lying if I said that I always have my emotions under control. I am a very emotional person, which is not a bad thing, as long as those emotions are kept in check. And, I feel like God is definitely trying to tell me that I have a problem because I have had a person, who I consider to be very angry and abrasive, tell me that I am intimidating and I have read two devotionals this week about controlling emotions.
I am by no means an angry person. There was a time, a few years ago when I was, though. It was a very scary time. Literally, everything and everyone made me angry. Members of my family, some of my friends, my job, even people at my church seemed to be constantly pushing my buttons. I felt almost powerless to stop it. However, one day after much prayer, I decided I did not want to be angry. I just woke up and realized that all of my anger was useless. It was not changing anyone's behavior and I literally felt like it was killing me. Letting go of that anger gave me such a sense of freedom. I stopped letting other people's actions dictate my happiness, and I thank God for delivering me from it. Now, I find myself starting to experience the same thing. I am not sure what the trigger is, but the anger has been coming back in spurts. Last week, I got so angry that I scared myself. The good news is that I recognize it and I know that I need to come up with a plan to calm myself down when I feel an episode of anger approaching. I didn't do a good job of it last week, but I am doing better this week. So, now when people make me angry, and it happened today, I stop, take a breath, say a prayer, and then deal with the situation. And, I even try to smile afterwards. It's a work in progress, but I don't want to mess up my witness by being an angry Christian, so I am willing to put in the work. Anger is a natural emotion. There are many things that should make us angry, but we have to handle it in a way that it doesn't ruin our credibility. Jesus got angry. If you read the Old Testament, you know that God got angry. But, the important part is how you manage that anger. Handling the situation in the right way will not only help your sanity, but it will also help build up the Kingdom. Ms. EV
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