A Little Steamed

You ever have one of those moments when things aren’t going exactly the way you wanted, and you get a bit frustrated? Have you ever continued the downward spiral where at that point everything continues to make you more and more mad, and you continue to act worse and worse until you find yourself snapping at those around you and escalating the situation to embarrassing proportions? No? Yeah, me neither.

Well, except for this weekend. Saturday rolled around, and like fools, we made plans. Don’t you know that when you have children, and you make plans—they tend to get messed up and fall through? Maybe not every time, but you can pretty well bank on the fact that your specific plans will not happen they way they are crafted and diligently rehearsed and laid out in that perfect little existence of your mind.

We were going to attend the Virginia Children’s Festival in Norfolk. However, while they were not being terribly obnoxious about it, they boys decided they didn’t want to help us out by following our schedule. That got me just a bit frustrated. Then came another little discovery that slowed us way down, but I won’t bore you with those details. Let’s just say I needed to run a quick errand, just as the rain started to fall. In torrents.

The key to this whole story is that every so steadily, my temper and frustration level were boiling up, and I was the proverbial pressure cooker waiting to explode. Finally, I think it was something the boys said or did. The fact that I can’t really remember shows how unimportant it was in the grand scheme of things. But, much to my chagrin, I finally hit my limit.

All in all, I handled it better than I could have. There were no spankings in anger, there was no throwing of items across the room. But there was a bit of volume increase on my voice, and there was the slight issue of banishment from the kitchen forever. (I never said I was completely rational in my reaction.) Long story short, the boys got sent to their rooms in tears, and I managed to act more like the child throwing a tantrum than they did.

The really sad part of all of this was that just as things started heating up, I heard a very clear voice in my mind or my heart telling me, “Take a break, you’re about to get too frustrated.” In fact, I kept hearing similar warnings the whole time. When the explosion came and went, the same voice said, “you don’t really feel any better, do you?” Nope.

In fact, I was feeling pretty low. I was only mad at myself. We had spent a good bit of time at church the previous week discussing the Holy Spirit, and how many of us ignore it, or get it confused. The truth is, in this situation, I was too determined to get my way, and when my way wasn’t happening, I was still stubborn enough to try and get control. Funny how neither of those things happened...

If I had only listened the first time, I think I might have been able to keep my cool. I’m sure of it, because the Spirit works to bring Honor to God, and my yelling needlessly at the children didn’t do that.

Many times, if we just follow the direction of the Holy Spirit, and stick to the truth of the Scriptures, especially that one about Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Gentleness, Faithfulness, and Self-control (which, incidentally, come from following the Spirit’s guidance), we will diffuse the situation before it gets to the aforementioned level.

I smoothed things over with the boys, and I apologized to my wife for acting like a total Neanderthal. (Cue the Geico cavemen.) The day was salvaged, and we ended up having a pretty good day. But, I will never be able to completely take back what I did. Listening to the Spirit isn’t always easy, but it is always the right thing to do.