I guess God really wants to teach me how to manage my anger.  Last night, we went to Ralphs and got some beef. When we got home and opened up the package and separated the slices, we saw that the beef was brown and had a funny odor to it.  It's the kind of smell beef gets when it has gone bad.  I knew I couldn't cook it, so I got back in my car and headed back to the store.  There, the manager protested, "it's supposed to be like that."  I was suprised that he was arguing with me, but he conceded in allowing me to return it when I insisted that it was spoiled.  Then he told me to get in line.  I felt offended.  First of all, he was treating me like I didn't know any better and then he was going to send me back in line?  He should've apologized for wasting my time and he should've opened a register and taken care of me right there.  I got my money back and then went across the street to a competing grocery and made my purchases there instead. 

I was very mad while I was grocery shopping at Albertsons and still mad as I drove home.  But then while I was driving, I realized that I was being given another chance to choose forgiveness.  That's it.  I just have to choose it.  I am faced with two doors.  Do I walk through the door of continued anger or the door of forgiveness?  I realized all over again for the second time that day - when I hold anger, I can't hold anything else at all. 

I think the key for me is to realize that I have a choice: to be angry or to forgive.  When I don't realize I have a choice, I always go on and on in anger.  But when I realize that there's a choice, the choice becomes a lot easier to make. 

Yesterday, we put the dog we've been pet-sitting in our kitchen with the baby gate up while we were at a Home Group.  When we got back, the dog greeted us at the door!!  It had broken free and conveyed its anger and spite toward us by leaving its "mark" all over our house.  The house reeked of stinky waste!  I was very mad at the dog.  I didn't look at it, touch it or speak to it for the rest of the night.  And before we went to sleep, I said to Sam, "It's not a person, I don't have to forgive it!" 

But I was wrong about that.  Sometimes forgiveness is more for ourselves than for the one who has wronged us.  I realize that as I've continued to hold the anger in my heart all day today, I haven't had room for anything else in my heart.  And I am learning that sometimes God requires me to forgive even when the trespasser is not repentant and has not asked for forgiveness.  I think that's the most difficult thing for me.  I want the "other" to be sorry and feel really bad -- but in this case (as in so many cases in life), that's just not gonna happen.  I can't reprimand it, reason with it, or ever hear words of repentance from it.  The only thing I can do is forgive the dog and move on.  God's great act for forgiving me should be more than enough to help me forgive a silly dog -- and anyone else who ever wrongs me.

Inviting Jesus

Jesus was there in my past as much as He is in my present and in my future.

I wonder sometimes if we hold onto good memories so tightly because we're afraid that if we don't, then we'll lose them altogether.  And the bad memories - I wonder if we re-visit them in our minds -- or, more aptly, that they come back to revisit us in a haunting kind of way -- because we're still somehow afraid that they will rise to the surface for all the world to see.  Whether it's good memories or bad ones, I realized again this morning that sometimes, all I have to do is invite Jesus into those memories, and the scene changes. 

Sometimes that just means going back to those memories in my mind and acknowledging that Jesus was there.  "Jesus, you were there.  You were there when I walked the streets of Beijing.  You were there in the classroom with me..."

"Jesus, you were there when I sat and laughed and prayed with Julie the last time.  When she told me I absolutely must write and use my creativity.  You were there when I hugged her goodbye one last time."

His being there in the good memories makes me know that I don't have to hold on so tight.  He's holding on to the memories for me.  I won't lose them.

And for the bad memories...I realize that just because I didn't know God at certain parts in my life and didn't recognize that He was there doesn't mean that He wasn't.  He didn't choose me in spite of my sins or despite my sins... it was because of my sins that He chose me.  He knew I was running down a path that would lead to destruction, and that's why He rescued me.  Often, I think shamefully about my past and live as if I'm still trying to hide it from Him.  But why am I hiding?  He knows all about it.  He was there with me.  What does it mean that Jesus was there?  It means that I don't have to hide anymore.  So instead of pretending, I need to invite Him to be there with me.  I need to re-think my past with Jesus there too -- knowing that He was there and knowing that sometime later in the future, He invited me in, knowing full-well what I had done in the past. 

"Jesus, you were there.  You were there when I did things that I've been ashamed of ever since.  Though I hid them, though I covered up... though I did not know you or recognize you, you were there with me and you saw everything.  I didn't pull the wool over your eyes.  I didn't deceive you.  You were there, and you have remembered those moments...those sins...no more."

The invitation for Jesus to come, to enter in, to be there, to uncover, to shed light...is so incredibly, absolutely freeing...