Last night…
Wednesday, July 15th, 2009 at
12:02 pm
I was cooking dinner. Actually, I’d already cooked it days before but I needed to heat it up on the stove top. For some reason the transfer from fridge container to pot wasn’t going well and in trying to scoop it out my plastic spatula spoon was a little too bendy and flung a very large portion of dinner across the kitchen. It splattered and made a big mess.
I immediately decided to be angry with the kids and I looked around for the closest one to blame just to realize that I was alone – that is until Luke (the dog) realized that I had spilled food and wandered in to see if he could assist in the clean up.
Looking in at the kids I was even more irritated that none of them were jumping up to help me clean up my gigantic disaster. They were all happily watching an old version of Oliver, singing the songs and giggling. My frustration level was on the rise.
Why do people do this? One minute we’re doing fine and the next we’re totally grumpy for what seems like the stupidest of reasons.
I’ll never get myself.
It only took a quick moment before I began to wonder why I was so upset. Sure, I had yet another thing to clean up; but, it was what it was – a mess that I made on accident. There was nothing I could do about it except get to work cleaning it up. I could have made a stink and had everybody in there helping me but I chose not to. I pushed my silly irritation aside and made the conscious decision to just clean it all up quietly and be done with it.
And ya know what? It’s all cleaned up and no harm was done.
No harm was done.
My kids knew nothing about it and I owed no apologies for being unjustifiably grumpy. Something that would have festered in me and caused me great frustration a year ago didn’t bug me but for a few seconds last night.
It’s amazing how a person can change if they just make an effort to be different. I know that the more I practice staying calm the better I’ll get at not getting upset at all. The goal is to eventually stop the feelings of irritation all together. It was an unreachable goal just a few short years ago. Now I can see that it is not only a reachable goal, but within my line of sight.
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This made me think of Galatians 5 and the fruit of the Spirit…patience and self-control specifically.
I am so happy to know I am not the only one who does things like this…you are such an encouragement my friend!
I have struggled with this too. Last year is about when I saw my struggle clearly. It is a conscience effort to stay calm. What an encouragement to read your success in staying calm.
I am thankful for that little moment God gives us to think it through before we blow up. I can assure you I have been where you are where I would get angry in no time about some little accident. This morning I told my baby girl to get off the potty and the potty stuck to her bottom when she got up. That made a mess on the rug. I came close to being angry, but decided to take on quick action with my other 2 girls. It was cleaned up in 5 minutes.