Healing Please!

I love when I'm seeking God's answers to questions I have, and He reveals a truth that I know will change me, forever.

The question I've had for Him lately is "Why, Lord, do I lose my temper and end up being so harsh with my children?" I know we all have our weak moments, but this is something I'm just not okay with, and I've been pleading with God to make me different in this area for quite some time.

There have been pieces to this healing over the years, but today so much came together. My heart just "got it", and for me, knowing the why behind my behavior is always a beginning road to healing.

The answer I heard as I asked God "why? why do I get so worked up, and end up yelling and losing my temper?", was that I have a selfishness issue. God then showed me how a lot of my selfishness comes from childhood wounds.

One of my big ones is growing up without my Daddy. He was not there for most of my life. Little girls depend on things like having our daddy's around. While, I had a step Dad who did a lot of things right, there were also a lot of things he did get very, very, wrong. As a little girl I could remember thinking that if my Daddy only knew how my step Dad was treating my brother and I, then he would come and save us. As time passed the hope of this ever happening grew less and less.

Growing up, so much of my life was out of my control. Things I should have been able to depend on, I couldn't. Very quickly I began to control all of my relationships and many of my circumstances. I controlled and manipulated people, my fears ruled, and I was very selfish in many ways. There was so much dysfunction in the way I handled friends, boyfriends, and family. This was a way I had learned to "self protect" myself at a very young age and it just continued to grow.

As I carried on this conversation with God, He revealed to my heart that most of my "losing it" comes when my "agenda" is not carried out. I have an "expectation" of how I think things should go, and when they don't I have a choice to make. I can choose to believe the truth, that the God of this universe controls every single situation, and if He has allowed a certain hiccup in my day, then it has purpose, or I can fight it. When I do fight it, I find myself short tempered, and treating the people I love the most in unfair ways. It's a selfishness issue. I want what I want, when I want it!

My dysfunctions seem to rear their ugly head when life gets hard, and hello, I don't know about you, but over here a lot of days are just hard! My work here, is to not have so many stinkin "expectations", hold loose to my "agenda", and be willing to very quickly let it go! Children are not robots, and I'm not real sure why I expect mine to be completely trained obedient adults when they are five :)! God has given me the gift of awareness, and he has shown me some of the why, behind my behavior. Now I will just invite Him to be who He is, and heal my heart. He is my Healer!

Sometimes, I wonder why the Lord has trusted me with all of these kids, and is He sure I'm supposed to home school them, all of them, really? There are so many days when I'm certain he picked the wrong girl! Then I'm reminded of the truth, God never makes a mistake. Six kids and home school just seems to stir the pot of my dysfunctions, but I'm entertaining the thought that these situations are all part of my "healing" journey. May-be home school is for me? May-be God loves me too much to let my life be "easy"? When I think of times that I've really learned something, something that's changed who I am for the better, it's always been hard. The truth is I never want to stay the same. I want to be different tomorrow than what I was today.

I must choose, even when it's hard, I will choose not to run my life! Today I choose to have a plan, but to hold it loosely, so that when my plan is tossed aside, it's okay!

Lord, I know this will not always be easy. Thank you for revealing this truth to me. I give it to you. I know my healing will come through abiding in you, so that your heart can flow out of me. I want to treat my kids the way You treat me. Change me God, heal me.