Wednesday, February 05, 2020

Not Dr. Jekyll

Ever since the end of last year... coinciding with PCS... I can proudly say I have kept my temper in check.  I really found conviction that raising my voice and losing my cool is NOT the way to raise a family.  I want them to listen and obey out of LOVE, not out of FEAR. 

Tonight... I finally broke my own rule.  My two young, joyful, boisterous, rambunctious kids were having a tad too much fun at home while I was preparing for, ironically, Prayer Meeting.  How about that.  They were loud.  Very loud.  Screaming, piercing loud.  I gave them a couple of warnings.  I asked them to have fun, but keep it down.  And then... the camel's back broke with that last scream.  While I was given the task of being a priest... that was the moment I fall to temptation. 

And then the anger came out.  No, it was wrath.  The words slowly crecendo'ed.  "Can. YOU. PLEASE. QUIET. DOWN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That earned me about 30 minutes worth of golden silence.  I finally got done with preparation.  And as I was making dinner and reviewing my slides (double duty-ing), NN came in and machine-gunned about a dozen questions.  I volleyed the first two... but after about the 6th one... I needed to let her know it wasn't a good time.  With a 50 / 50 chance of doing the right thing... of course I picked the wrong way to go 100% of the time. 

I have (at least) two sides to me.  And Mr. Hyde... can come out of hiding.



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