Lord, Anger Has Made Me a Fool

"Human anger does not produce the righteousness God desires." James 1:20  "Fools vent their anger, but the wise quietly hold it back." Proverbs 29:11  "Control your temper, for anger labels you a fool." Ecc 7:9   Lord,  I must confess to You that in my lifetime, I have let human anger make me a fool.  When I was young, fits of anger were prevalent in our home.  With 9 people living in one household and none controlled daily be the Holy Spirit ...well, You know it all!  When I left home, I carried that anger with me.  When I got married, I carried that anger with me.  As I grew and started caring what others thought of me, I was in control more, but for the wrong reasons.  I didn't want to be thought a fool.   I did not know until after I trusted You as Savior and Lord that the type of anger I was venting was not just bad attitude, but sin.  My children and husband can attest that it has taken years of walking with You, understanding life, people, and the enemy more, that my fits of anger have become rare...but the wolf is still there ready to display its ugly head at a given moment if I am not very close to you.       I experienced the grace and mercy of my husband July 2nd, Lord, and am ever so grateful.  I had put a dish rag and kitchen hand towel in the sink in the utility room and poured in bleach, shout, laundry soap, and turned on the hot water to half fill the basin.  Lord, I got distracted and pulled away from that sink...for about 10 minutes!  I heard something funny from the kitchen and went out to see what the strange noise was and the room was flooded with hot soapy, Clorox water!  I had forgotten to turn the water off!!!    I was angry at myself for being so stupid.   BUT, my dear husband Dick, who could have been really nasty and angry at me, held his tongue and just wanted to be helpful.      Lord, it took 3 hours to sop up and clean up the mess I had made.  The water had gotten under loose tiles, under the water heater, in the top tray of Dick's tool box, and under the washer and dryer.   Why the appliances did not short out and were not damaged, was by Your grace alone.  On the good side, that floor has never been so clean!    And under the tiles was Clorox, so any damp areas would not mildew.       Lord, we are fallible for sure, and we all do dumb things, rebellious things, and either misunderstand others or are misunderstood.   Help us...help ME to always turn to You for grace and mercy in times when I feel that old anger wolf start to rear its ugly head so it can spew venom out on those around me.  Seal my lips, Lord, so I do not say or do things in anger that will be remembered by others for their lifetime.        One of the fruits of Your Spirit is self control.  If I am out of control, it is because You are not filling me,  If You are not filling me, it is because I am not allowing it.  Lord, forgive me!      I find that most of my anger sprang from feeling "put upon" by others.  By that I mean being pulled away from what I wanted to do to something I didn't want to do; something that was not in my plan.   As a child it was not wanting to obey, work, share,  tend to others needs, or help to do things that weren't fun.    As a young mom, it was being pulled away from much needed sleep to tend to crying children when I saw no need for them to be crying or while I was busy doing "my" things" having to clean up unnecessary messes, stopping fights, and dealing with rebellion in the children.  Now as an aging adult, it is dealing with aging bodies that forget things, and won't work the way they used to.      Lord, I know in Heaven, we will not have this ugly sin to content with.   Thank You, Jesus, that we do not have to wait for heaven to lead a more angry free life.  We just need to walk daily very close to You and realize that You are in control, not us; that we should always expect the unexpected nasty things of life and praise You each moment they do not occur and then give You the SACRIFICE of praise when they do.