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Do you deal with anger on a daily basis?

Yesterday, I’d had a long day. By five o’clock, I had HAD IT. Rachel wanted something new every minute, plus she had decided to cut open her sister’s new jump rope. As I tried to get the scissors back from her–running with those is never good, yes?–Rachel tried to close the scissors … on my finger. I howled in pain. I couldn’t get the scissors off my finger. Rachel kept squeezing tighter. I could tell she wondered, “Why aren’t they shutting?”

Because my finger was in the way!

Yikes. Thank the Lord that they were dull scissors, abused one too many times on cardboard. Otherwise, I would have trouble counting to ten…

I wanted to scream and rant. Heat bubbled in my throat. I kept stamping it down, refusing to give into its desire. Rachel doesn’t mean to be this way. It’s the autism… Instead of blowing my stack, I made dinner.

Rachel, my ever-helpful sweetie, decided to lend a hand. She grabbed my giant spoon and went to work on that spaghetti sauce, stirring as no one had ever stirred before. Yep … dinner became a 3-D sensory experience. Cleaning the raised flower-patterned tiles on the back splash turned out to be more a challenge than I anticipated.

Again, I had the urge to turn into a banshee. I wanted to toss the spaghetti into the backyard, pan and all. I imagined hiding in the closet and having a good cry. Or maybe breaking some glass jars against the bricks outside. This terrible, rushing monster inside of me wanted out.

My mind went back to the message I had heard from Dr. Charles Stanley from In Touch Ministries just that morning. (Funny how God has AMAZING timing, isn’t it?)

His message was part 1 of a series called Victory Over Anger. When I looked up the message on his website, the introduction stated, “Anger is the most dangerous of all emotions. It’s like a boomerang–you throw it out at someone, and it comes right back at you. But not all anger is bad. We can have righteous indignation, which is anger God would have if He were in our situation. In this message, Dr. Stanley explains how we can determine if our anger is righteous or sinful and how to deal with it.” http://www.intouch.org/broadcast/today-on-radio

One of the things I took away from his message is that anger is like poison or cancer bubbling and festering inside a person. Second, my anger was definitely NOT righteous. It needed to be dealt with by the Lord. I would highly recommend listening to his wisdom. The message can be found today, May 1, 2012, here. If you are looking after May 1, try the podcast section of the website. Dr. Stanley has numerous messages about anger. The podcast to look for is entitled “Victory over Anger.” The website, again, is www.intouch.org.