I Had a Bad Day
Yesterday, I had a bad day, a really bad day. Its been a long time since I had such a bad day, but this one was different.
Lots of little things snowballed into my temper flying. My children and I drove an hour to the next town to shop. One of my children revealed that he repeated a very private conversation to a local gossip. He didn’t realize what he had done. A somewhat heated discussion resulted. I felt guilty for making him feel bad.
A bad incident at the first store with an incompetent store clerk escalated matters. Then the climax came when a child behaved foolishly in a store, so foolishly, that I returned home instead of completing my shopping.
On the way home I lost it, in the car. You know “it” my sanity, my composure, my Proverbs 31 facade. I went on a verbal rampage. It was bad. It was an hour drive. Had I been at home I would have removed myself until I had calmed down. But I didn’t and I ranted. After the rant I got quiet and prayed for forgiveness. We drove the remaining 40 minutes in silence.
We arrived home to find the chickens escaped their pen and visiting the horses. Did I mention it was raining? Pouring rain. I corralled chickens in the rain. I needed the cooling off time.
Once in the house and dry, I talked to God some more. I asked what I always ask, “Why do I do this? I hate when I do this, so why do I do it? What is wrong with me?” Is it hormones? (I knew it wasn’t PMS, those days have been replaced with glorious menopause–which it like consistent PMS , with bonus hot flashes). Did I eat something wrong? Was it just plain flesh?
It was my flesh. At some point I gave the devil a foothold (a lesson I just taught my children about the previous day) and it snowballed. Ironic: I ended up demonstrating the sinful foolish behavior illustrated by my son that triggered my outburst.
I have a background of legalism, shame, and struggling to get God to love me. Normally a bad day like this would result in extreme condemnation, shame, cutting off communication with God because I believed He was angry with me. This time was different.
I was remorseful. My Father, God was forgiving (1 John 1:9) and I felt forgiven. I felt loved. I believe God’s sorrow is not over our sin as much as it lies in our refusal to approach Him when we sinned and failed. That’s how I feel about my children’s disobedience.
Satan used to get me after such an outburst. I would be so crippled with guilt and self-hatred it would quench Gods in the Holy Spirit. This time, by understanding the love of Christ, I had victory.
“So it is with you: you are sad now, but I shall see you again, and your hearts will be full of joy, joy no one shall take from you.” (Jn. 16:16-22).
I had a separate talk with each of my sons.I apologized, and had a long talk with them about God, forgiveness and God’s love. Of how my behavior was just as wrong as theirs. It was an opportunity to explain how God loves compassionately and intensely. How He feels bad when we do bad, like I feel bad when they disobey. God loves us beyond worthiness and unworthiness.
It was an opportunity to explain to them God doesn’t not act in sin, like I did. God will correct in loving discipline not in a shout of anger. I asked them to pray for me.
I was able to have a productive talk with my sons because I had forgiven myself. The art of forgiveness and gentleness toward ourselves leads to being forgiving and gentle with others.
Robin,
Thank you for posting this. It is nice to know that you, some one i have so much respect for, are human too!
We all have bad days, but i appreciate you posting yours and how you came to repentance and forgiveness. i, too, struggle with the legalism, shame and trying to earn God’s love. Isn’t it nice to know that God loves us in spite of ourselves?
Praying that you have a better day today!
Blessings,
Alycia
Love this, Robin!
Thank you for sharing! I am sorry you had such a horrible day and thankful it is not just me! When I’ve lost it and have a sore throat from spending too many minutes (yes, I know even one minute is too many) ranting at my children and acting like a two year old having a temper fit it is hard to move on. So thankful for a God that loves us even when we have disappointed Him again and that He has promised in Phillipians 1:6 “Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:”. I claim that promise not only for myself but for my children and pray that it is a long long LONG time before either of us have a day like this again! Never would be great! God Bless!
Thanks for being REAL!!! I think part of the “blog” world is that everyone always shows their beautiful house, beautiful kids, beautiful school-room, beautiful family, beautiful marriage, with pretty table cloths and china tea sets. You know what I mean. Thanks for your transparency, because this easily could have been a typical day in my life these days (complete with hot flashes and raging emotions) Hopefully, if today I find myself in that same place, I can remember this post!!!
Blessings,
Linda
God uses all things for His glory. Our children truly can see God’s love, mercy, and forgiveness in our lives when we share with our children: the error of our sinful ways and how they entangle us, when we ask forgiveness from God and them, and discuss the way in which we should have demonstrated wisdom according to scripture. If they see God transforming our hearts daily; they will seek him more and desire the same for their lives.
On another note thank you for sharing with other moms. It is always inspiring to hear God working in other mom’s lives. To be reminded that it is ok when we fall or fail in the moment because it is then that when we learn and/or are reminded how much we need our Savior.
I love the quote by Brennan Manning, going to add that to my blog.
Robin, this is one of the reasons I have kept reading your blog over the years. You are so real and transparent and we are so able to identify with you. Many a time I have wished I could have a “do over” with my children. All I can do now, even though they are grown, is to try and be honest with them about my failings. Being normal children, even grown, it would save them the trouble of exposing the faults for me (tongue in cheek).. I love them all dearly and they deserve to have what I never got from my dear Mother, who had so much pride she could never admit to anything being her fault. I suffered from depression for many years and nearly let my family fall apart because of it. When I tried to talk to her about it, she just shrugged and said, I don’t know anything about that, when something was not going right I always just figured it was someone else’s fault – oh, how true! I grew up being made to feel like everything was my fault when something went wrong and took it to heart. But I am so glad she said it because it opened my eyes to what part of my problem was and enabled me to begin the journey to taking responsibility instead of blame and to refusing blame for what was someone else’s weakness. God arranged it so that the last two years of MOther’s life, her mind was bad and she revealed things to me she never had before which allowed us to grow very close and she passed with healing between us, which was a double blessing. God is so good.
Robin, thank you for sharing this. We all have bad days like this, and it is nice to know that we are not alone The Lord’s blessings~Kim
Wow, I think I’ve just read a day in my own life …right down to dealing with chickens, horses etc.
One of my days involved a dumb (purposely insulting the intelligence) steer of ours finding his way through the viaduct to the other side of the road so he could go munch on ‘greener’ grass. This resulted in me and the boys chasing the bad-boy-bovine all over creation while trying to make it somewhere “on time”. Looking back which was just a few weeks ago, I can laugh about the silly steer…but that day my flesh was winning the war.
On more days than I care to recall I’ve launched a verbal tirade complete with me losing my composure and pretty much giving my kiddos a fine demonstration of “how NOT to do it” (parenting that is).