What an encouragement and challenge this post by Lisa Jacobson from Club31Women blog was to me! Very convicting, but also encouraging. I hope you will be blessed by reading it.
Nobody would have pegged me for a yeller.
Actually, I wouldn’t have guessed it either. Maybe my memory is
faulty, but I don’t remember ever having shouted before – except maybe
at a college football game or catching a friend’s attention across the
parking lot.
Other than that, I’d say I’m a fairly soft-spoken person.
But something seemed to have happened once I had small children. Yeah, it’s like something snapped!
I became a yeller.
A yeller? Me??
At first I blamed it on all kinds of things. Hormones. Stress.
Sleep-deprivation. But after a while, I had to face up to the facts. No
matter what the cause, I’d turned into a yelling mom.
And I hated it and wanted to change.
I cried out to God to miraculously overcome this awful struggle, secretly hoping for some kind of instantaneous healing.
But it turned out to be more of a journey – by His grace, in His strength, and with a lot of determined effort on my part.
One of the first steps of my journey was
to start an anger journal.
I wrote down each time I lost my cool. I recorded the time of the day,
the setting, the person, and the circumstance – much like you would in a
food journal. Then I looked for patterns. When did I most often lose
it? Under what conditions?
I tried to identify the specific situations I could do something about. For
instance, I often unraveled in the late morning and much of it was due
to being HUNGRY. A mid-morning snack went a long way toward that
trouble. Also, I found that taking a short nap after lunch helped me
better handle our afternoons. Setting up a basic routine with our young
ones reduced the general chaos which made it a bit easier on my nerves
too.
Now those were some problems I could address.
But what about those things that I couldn’t control or anticipate?
Spilled cereal bowls. Poopy diapers. Arguing children. Seemingly
incessant demands on my time and body all day long. Yes, what about
those?
Next step….
Unknowingly, I’d always orchestrated my life around what I wanted out of the day.
As a single woman, I’d set out goals for myself and then I accomplished
them. But my life changed dramatically when I had children. It was no
longer all about me and what I thought a day should look like.
So a change was needed – a change in my perspective. It wasn’t merely
about what I wanted anymore. My goals. My purposes. My life.
My question needed to be, “Lord, what do You have for us today?”
What if He wanted me to learn “serving” by cleaning up one spill
after another that morning? Then I could view the disaster as more of
“an opportunity” than a “trial”.
What if our children ruined our trip to the library because of all
their bickering? Hmm…looks like The Lord wants us to learn more about
loving each other than about reptiles and kangaroos.
When I began looking at our day in this light, that “snappish” feeling wasn’t nearly so strong. And, even if it was one of those terribly trying times, I could ask, “Please, Lord, help me to see what You want for us here?”
While this was a slow, and sometimes painful, process, I eventually got better. Quieter and calmer. Peaceful.
And if you happen to be on just such a journey? Here’s what I’d say:
- Don’t listen to the Enemy that you can’t change. Because you can.
- Don’t be overly hard on yourself if you mess up. Simply start anew
the next day. Or even the very next moment. (On occasion, I’d stop
mid-yell…then say aloud, “Nope. I want to try that again.”)
- Don’t attempt to overcome this in your own strength. Rather in Christ (Phil. 4:13).
- Do ask for support and prayer from people who love you. While rather
humbling, I’m thankful for a couple of close friends and a husband who
stood with me on this one.
So, yes, by God’s grace I’m no longer a yeller.
Well, unless my kids do something really wonderful, that is. Then you’ll hear me shouting as loudly as the next mom.
Yelling and cheering.
And I’ll be cheering for you too.
In His Grace,
Lisa Jacobson
~Posted By Breanna
