Confessions

Today as I was going through my fave blogs, I happened upon Tony's blog.  He opened up to his readers about struggles, mistakes and the ugliness that can appear within us.  He confessed about having an awful temper.

I cringed.

I didn't cringe because his confession was so surprising or awful. I cringed because I could relate.  I have an ugly temper.  And like Tony, if I let it bottle up inside me long enough....it will explode on whoever is next to me at that moment and unfortunately it is usually my husband.

It is under better control now that I have learned ways to deal with it and watch for it, but when I was in high school, it was ugly.  I mean vicious.  When I got angry, I would throw things at people, say every dirty word that you could possibly think of and exhaust myself with such horrific tantrums that it was really a pitiful sight.  My parents didn't really know how to deal with all of the anger I had let built up inside me.  I have never been an excellent communicator (counseling has helped me tremendously) so it was definitely hard for me to communicate what I was feeling or experiencing whenever I was angry or upset.  One time, and I am so embarrassed to even admit this, my mom and I got in a physical fight. I mean there was hair pulling, shoving and yelling for 2 minutes. My dad had to pull us apart. Needless to say I was grounded (duh!)

Now that I am older, I have learned different ways to deal with anger.  Praying helps me a lot.  Sometimes I get so angry that I really have to just walk away from a situation, get on my knees and cry.  Because sometimes I just don't know what to do with all the emotions that start to appear.  If I don't notice the escalation of emotion quicly enough, I end up saying very hurtful things to my husband.  I have a tendency to mock him and make him feel stupid.  I have never called him such a thing....but I have definitely insinuated it to him. And just thinking that I would hurt the man I love that way makes me upset and sad.  Dan has been oh so gracious to forgive me for the moments I have erupted on him. I don't really deserve it, but I guess that is the definition of grace right? 

I mean if you think about it really hard, the fact that Jesus died on the cross for me is pretty amazing. I certainly did NOTHING to deserve that.  I still don't deserve it. Yet He loved me so much that He couldn't bear the thought of being without me.  He took my sin upon Himself on that cross and now I am clean.  That is just amazing. 

Tiff~