This took a twist I didn't see coming, and I looked at other blogs posts to see if I'd already written about it, but maybe I haven't? You know what they say about us red heads...

Okay no more politics for a while, unfortunately there’s no ability to dialogue on this blog, and I need to be quicker to listen, slower to speak, and definitely slower to become angry. I whine about my problem with crying all the time, but really it’s my temper that’s a more alarming issue. I generally do avoid things that upset me, can’t avoid mom because well, that’s unavoidable. But. It’s not good, I never know what will set me off, and others don’t know either. I got very upset at a dear neighbor friend a few months ago, and we’ve forgiven each other, but things aren’t the same, and I still feel really bad, and guilty. With mom, when mom upsets me, I just yell, but I couldn’t yell at Barbara, but I know my eyes were translating a lot of frustration and I was grimacing, and internally counting and trying to chill and not be upset. She just, she insulted the persecuted church, and basically blamed them for their persecution, like if they weren’t sharing the Gospel and rocking the boat they’d be okay. And I was not okay. But I knew, I KNEW, my temper was through the roof I was upset, and I was in no place, NO place, to argue, because the temptation to yell would be so strong, and I was just upset, so I needed to keep my mouth shut. Then she said Muslims surely won’t go to hell. I wanted to counter, but, I was so emotionally charged I knew it wasn’t right, I knew, I was not in a position to discuss, debate, argue, anything, I just needed to keep my mouth shut and bite my tongue. Now, I know she’s much more liberal than I am. She has a gay daughter, her friends are gay, she’s a very loving and inviting person. But I don’t know if she believes in hell at all, and you know what? She calls out most Christians today because most of us don’t talk about hell to people we love, and most don’t believe their loved ones would go to hell, Christian or not. If you believed someone you loved was headed to hell, you would plead with them to consider Jesus, right? That haunts me. I shouldn’t worry about others going to hell, but I do feel we have some responsibility to share the Gospel – not to save, only God does that, but yes we must share. I think about my co-workers at Kilwins a lot, wanting to share with them, not feeling work the best environment to share, ehhhh… I may have read too many testimonies of people who went to hell and said they saw loved ones suffering in hell saying, why didn’t you tell me, why didn’t you tell me, I didn’t know, why didn’t you tell me. One man who went to hell, he was a reformed Calvinist, could debate theology with anyone, knew the Bible well, and in hell he saw people from his church, who he knew were Christians, and they saw him and were like, why didn’t you tell us, why didn’t you warn us, and Jesus straight up told this guy, if you keep preaching Calvinist theology you will go to hell, too. I actually talked to him on the phone, and asked him about stuff, I’ll see if I can link his testimony on YouTube. If I didn’t in a previous blog. All that to say, I’m very aware that hell is very real and many people wind up there, even Christians who aren’t living in repentance and faith, and I do feel the weight of that truth on me. Maybe it’s why I care about unreached people groups hearing the Gospel. Anyhow… I’m not sure how this paragraph came about, very random, but, must be thoughts ruminating in my mind.

               I will say, I’m doing a little better with my temper and my mom, and I think there’s a direct correlation with the amount of time I’m spending alone with Jesus and the severity of my temper or the growth of my compassion and patience with my mom. Or something. Not that I don’t have my snappy moments, but overall things are better. Overall, my relationship with my mom has been rocky for a long time. I won’t quote from my journal from 2021, but, I was distressed about how I treated mom then, just like I am today.  I love my mom, I don’t know why I take out my anger on her so much.

               Sorry, this was not supposed to be confess the sin of anger blog. I would just say, I don’t want to be known as or remembered as an angry person. There already is way too much anger in our world. I mean, any direction you look, people are angry, upset, fired up, pissed off, ready to fight. It’s really sad. And, I just think, Christians are supposed to be persons of peace. Blessed are the peacemakers, right? And it’s hard to do that, to be a peacemaker, when you’re all up in arms defending what you think or shouting at someone else, and… it’s not like Jesus. He did get upset in the temple, understandably, but like… even when he was confronting the Pharisees, he used strong words to warn them, but he didn’t yell at them. He was very patient and compassionate with people.  And then, he absorbed the wrath of God on our sin on his body. He could have been angry at the people who crucified them, but he asked fGod to forgive them instead. So like, overall, Jesus wasn’t an angry person. He was refreshing to be around. So, I don’t want to be angry, I want to be refreshing as well. And even though I complain about crying all the time, I still would rather my temper change than anything else.

               So I said no politics for now, I won’t go there, but happy 4^th of July!