Not Slow to Anger
"And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone; so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your transgressions." -- Mark 11:25 (NASB)
Mom had a quick temper.
Growing up, we knew not to push her buttons. Although being kids, we did it anyway. What was so amazing was her ability to quash that anger just as fast.
Mom had been orphaned in Appalachian Kentucky as a young child during the Depression. Bounced from impoverished relative to relative, she endured things I could not begin to grasp until my years-long search for the truth behind her stories. What she’d been told about her parents by her family all turned out to be lies.
My inquiries turned up some amazing ugliness. Family murders. Rape. Repeated physical and sexual abuse. Through all this, even as a child, Mom believed in God (her older sister, a Christian, took her to church) and prayed God would stop her abuse.
He did.
Another relative removed her from the situation and enrolled Mom in a Christian boarding school. It wasn’t an easy place to live. She had to work hard. Six years later, she graduated high school.
Mom eventually made her way to Indiana. She became a registered nurse, married my Dad, and raised three kids while working full-time and also serving as the preacher’s wife on Sundays. We heard about the aggravating slights and downright mean manipulations at the clinics where she worked as a nursing director. Her Christian faith was mocked at times.
She did get angry about those, but just as quickly, forgave the coworkers involved.
How did Mom develop this ability to forgive such awful things?
She was a lifelong Christian, but becoming a Christian doesn’t automatically download a new personality type. (Oh, wouldn't that be easy?) I believe her temper developed because of the chronic injustices and abuse she endured as a child.
Loyal to a fault, she always championed the cause of others, especially patients, and any employees whom she felt were being treated unfairly.
The answer lay in her Bible, which I went through after she passed. Even through years of vascular dementia, she read her Scripture.
Dogeared pages. Marked up verses. Notes stuck between the leaves.
Bible study, prayer and offering unconditional love even to her enemies because God had forgiven her.
That's how.
"A man's discretion makes him slow to anger, and it is His glory to overlook a transgression." -- Proverbs 19:11 (NASB)
Questions for reflection:
What things should accompany forgiveness? How are we to go about it?
1. Read Matt. 5:44.
2. Read Col. 3:13.
3. Read Gen. 45:5-11 and Rom. 12:20. Joseph managed to forgive his brothers of a very grave sin. What did Joseph recognize that helped him do that?
