Lenten Detox, Part 4: The Angry Mom

When it comes to anger and losing our temper with our kids, we have two factors working against us: winter and sleep deprivation.

We can’t do anything about the winter. As I write this, the snow is falling. Again. Winter just shortens everyone’s fuse. And, 99% of the time, we really can’t do anything about the sleep deprivation, either. I read an article recently about anger, and the advice boiled down to this nugget of wisdom: Just take a nap. I wasn’t having the best day when I read the article. First, I laughed hysterically, then I cried because I felt so sorry for myself. Okay, so naps are out. (Which is all the more unfortunate during this last week with the transitions in our sleeping arrangements.)

And we can’t force spring to come. Now, what to do?

“In your anger, do not sin,” St. Paul writes, quoting a portion of Psalm 4. Yes, sometimes anger is justified, and the emotion of anger is not in and of itself sinful. I think about this as I reflect on bedtime last night, and see my oldest daughter holding out a toothbrush with gobs of toothpaste dripping off it, after I had told her, repeatedly and emphatically, that Mom would handle the toothpaste. I was angry. Very angry. Being angry that she disobeyed me was not wrong.

But wrong words and actions soon followed. I flew off the handle.

I realize and admit that lately (winter and sleep deprivation lately) I’ve not had the goal of keeping from sinning when I become angry. Somehow that had downgraded to a half-hearted hope that I would just not lose my temper in some public place, where people might see me blow my top with my kids. Ouch.

“Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.” (Ephesians 4:32)

God forgives me for every instance of sinning while I am angry. He forgives me for losing sight of the goal to keep my temper even when it’s just the kids and me here at home. Not because he gives me a pass, seeing that I’m so sleep deprived, and have no way of arranging a nap for myself. Seeing that winter is dragging on and on, and the girls can’t go outside to run off energy. God is 100% just and 100% holy. There is no such thing as a pass with Him. Those sins committed in anger had to be paid for in full.

That’s what Jesus did for me. Paul continues, “…Christ loved us, and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” Jesus sacrificed himself to pay for those sins. I have God’s forgiveness because the debt is paid.

Even now, God empowers me to be kind, and react with compassion instead of flying off the handle. He empowers me to forgive this little girl when she angers me by disobeying a clear directive. The God who is powerful enough to raise Jesus from the dead also must have the power to work this change in me in spite of exhaustion, or any other difficulty that arises in my life as a mom. It is, after all, the life that He himself has given me. Let me live it out not in anger, but, rather, in peace.