Alright, So Maybe I Have Anger Issues

Sons, daughters, children of God. We are called children of God.  We are the one thing in the world that can cause God the most joy, the most pain, the most anger.  Because that’s what children do, that what’s our children are capable of doing to us.  And not just them, but how other people treat them.  I know with every ounce of my being that I have never been as angry in my life as I have been when someone was ugly to my children or mistreated them.  In fact, I pretty much lose my mind and any court of law would grant me temporary insanity, because I swear to you, my brain shuts down and some kind of crazy primal impulses take over when someone hurts my child.  The funny thing is, that usually my kid is over the issue in 30 seconds (if they even notice it at all) whereas it takes me DAYS, WEEKS, or MONTHS to get over the mistreatment of my child.

Case in point:  many months ago in the Victoria mall (otherwise known as a sad place where people go to look at sad people and be sad about their sad lives….) Hudson and Graham were playing in the (sad) play area for (sad) children.  (Ok I’ll stop now.)  They were just being themselves and running around having a good time when Hudson stepped backward and accidentally knocked over an, oh, I don’t know, maybe like 11-month-old that was toddling around.  The baby’s mom swooped in from where she was sitting on the side of the play area and SCREAMED in Hudson’s face.  SCREAMED.  At this little 5-year-old boy whom she did not know, whom accidentally knocked over her baby (who was FINE by the way) in a play area full of KIDS.  Y’all, she was like inches from his face.  

This unholy rage just started violently rising up inside of me.  First of all, I have NEVER screamed in my child’s face.  Ever.  HOW DARE someone else come scream in my poor, little, baby-child’s face for an accident???  (I just think back to little Huddy’s face with tears streaming down and I just have the urge to hire someone from the mafia  to hunt this miscreant down.)

I really don’t even know what happened next because I kind of blacked out from the rage, but I know I told that woman to never speak to my child again, but what I wanted to do was fight her like one of those horrid videos that people upload to YouTube where some chick is beating down some other chick?  Well I hate those videos and they make me sick to my stomach, but OH. MAN.  I feel like if anyone in the world ever deserved it, it was this lady.  And perhaps Hitler.  But whatev.

I am not kidding you when I say that this was probably six months ago, and I am still not over it.  (As you can tell because I am still considering having the mafia find her.)  Just the fact that I care for my children so much, I try to protect them and do the best for them, and then some random person in a mall could come up and cause them pain--it makes me crazy.  Maybe because I feel so helpless.  Maybe because the fact becomes clear that no matter how much I try to do right for them, the world is still going to wound their little hearts and it causes me despair to realize this.

Or, maybe because I am emotionally unhinged and chemically unbalanced. ( ← true story)

I was reading C.S. Lewis this morning, a passage where he was talking about the Lord’s Prayer.  He was talking about how the Lord’s Prayer shows our relationship to God, and that he has made us his children, even though we are SO unworthy to be called this.  (He calls it “an outrageous piece of cheek” which I love.)  ( I think I am going to start calling people that.)  But anyway, he says that God has ordered us to do this.  He has ordered us in the Lord’s prayer to call him Father.  Because we have put on the righteousness of Christ, and we get to be his kids now.  

And this just makes me think...what does he feel like when he sees people wound us?  We know that he is jealous for us.  I wonder if it is at all like the way I felt when that woman screamed at Hudson?  (Minus all the sinful impulses and injurious thoughts.)  

I betcha it is.  I betcha it is a feeling that I don’t even know anything about.  Because, this is where God and I part ways in our feelings toward our kids:  He sent his SON to die for us.  I would do anything in this world to protect my sons from dying.  I think all the time how God the Father had it worse than Jesus during the crucifixion. Jesus endured the agony in his body, but can you imagine the way God felt it, knowing what he had asked his son to do? What he was refusing to rescue his son from?

So if God loves me that much--so much that he would ask his perfect son to die for me--I’m guessing he gets pretty upset when someone mistreats me.  I’m guessing he gets pretty upset when I mistreat someone else.  (I’m guessing he has a special punishment reserved for the lady that screamed at Hudson.)  

We get to be children of God, that he loves more than we understand, that is he jealous for, that he longs for us to realize the depth of his love for us.  My prayer for myself and my boys is that we will remember that and live like that.  Live like children of God, but also remember that others are children of God that he loves just as much as us.  Maybe some that we think are unlovely.  Maybe some that are really hard for us to love.  Children of God whom he loves fiercely.  Even more fiercely than a hormonal, unbalanced mama protecting her babes in a mall play area.

That’s love, my friends.

P.S.  I realize that my last few posts might be leading you to believe that I have some anger issues.  Talking to Cameron might also lead you to believe this.  I really don’t have any rebuttal for this, I am just acknowledging this so that you know that I know that you know, okay?  It’s my burden to bear.  Well, and Cam’s.  Hehe.