You Learn A lot

It's amazing how much you learn about yourself and your past once you're in a relationship. May I share? I'm learning that relationships really do teach you how selfish you are. Do you get mad? If so, how do you address the issue? Is everything entirely your fault? If not, how do you get change to happen? What if the other person doesn't want to change? How do you express your feelings without sounding like a nag? Now, these are some questions that have floated in my mind since the beginning. Some of them have been answered, some have been revamped, and others are still in question.

Today (well yesterday now) was the scariest day of my life. Not because I had an argument, but because I saw how angry I could get. I knew I could get this angry, but before it had always been in a dream or just in a thought. Yesterday I acted it out and I got terrified. Not because I thought I'd do bodily harm (I'm not that strong), but because I became someone I hated. I became my past. You know what that means don't you? You've become your past before. It's usually a parent, grandparent, or someone else from your past who had a trait you didn't particularly like. That's who I became.

I once heard in church that there's a such thing as generational curses...issues or negativity that move from one generation to another. Most people identify high blood pressure, diabetes, or cancer as a generational curse. I have some of these, but we Christians seem to forget the other things that can be seen as a generational curse. Mine is anger. The women in my family can get angry before a pin hits the floor. It's amazing how they can be happy go lucky one minute, and turn fire engine red the next. It use to freak me out as a child, but later I realized that what I was witnessing was a generational curse that had not been broken.

Three years ago I vowed to break it. It doesn't mean I don't get angry, but it happens less often and it's not as strong as other family members. There's nothing wrong with getting angry. The problem is when we allow that anger to cause us to sin and that's what I did. I allowed my anger to cause me to hurt someone else. So I'm taking this opportunity to point out how this happened so you and others can know the warning signs.

1. I began thinking about the thing that I KNEW would make me angry.
2. Instead of finding ways to deal with the situation, I kept thinking about it, which made me angrier.
3. Instead of praying about the matter, I talked to a friend about my problem. Note: She did not know everything, so her advice did not completely pertain to me. I made it pertain to me which fueled my anger even more.
4. When I did approach the person and a comment was made, I snapped. I could have taken another route, but my anger was at a high and I let my emotions take over. This is when my past came to haunt me and I didn't try to stop it.

Recognize this now? Your generational curse may not be anger, but we all let our curses take over sometimes and this is how it usually happens. So what have I done to resolve this? First, I recognized what happened and apologized. Later I asked for forgiveness. Will this solve everything? Probably not. But by doing both of these things, I have done something I never saw my family members do. So this was a step in the right direction. The rest is whatever else God tells me. It'll take time, but I'm learning. Hopefully you did to. Here's to another road trip.