Anger

Last week, I was angry. I was angry because my sincerity was questioned and my offer of sisterly love was turned down by someone who I truly wanted to consider me as her friend. And I'm sure I was angry because I felt rejected. My human nature wanted that I would indulge in angry bashing to even the score. It demanded me that I would go an-eye-for-an-eye-and-a-tooth-for-a-tooth with her. It needed me to hurt her back. I was angry! But thank God for this special occasion! It turned out to be the special time to know how I deal with anger.

I used to have issues on anger. When I got angry, I usually wouldn't stop talking until I mow people down with my hurtful words. It is by God's grace alone that I've learned to stop doing that. It was when He put me in a place where everything around just made me angry that He taught me to learn to be quiet and to pray instead. If I didn't learn that, I would have become an ugly duckling! No, seriously, God placed me to work for an angry ugly woman. She was always angry and she was super ugly! Being that I shared an office with her a year and a half, I became her anger target. I was hurt! So hurt I promised I didn't want to do it to others! She was so ugly I didn't want to become like her! She had a chronic hostile attitude on anything and on almost everyone. She was angry at the whole world. She was angry at God! But God has used her life to cultivate an important character in me... SLOW TO BECOME ANGRY!

I want to be beautiful and knowing how anger can make a person ugly and sickly, I pray that I become slow to become angry everyday. I feel sorry to see many angry and ugly women. They usually are the ones who are overly opinionated, loud and not happy. I feel for them and pray that God will begin to do a make-over in their lives, just as what He has done in me.

Here is a short test if what you have is a sinful anger or a righteous one...

1. Do you get angry most often about personal slights or over injustices against others?
2. Would your family members call you an angry person?
3. Would your family members say that you can't control your temper, that you tend to argue all the time, and that you lash out at the smallest criticism?
4. When someone offends you, does your response match the crime?