Harsh Words

“A gentle answers turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger” Proverbs 15:1

This was the first verse that I read this morning when I opened my Bible into Proverbs.

Ouch. No doubt that God speaks through the Bible!

Recently I have been short tempered with my children. A decent nights rest until 6 am is unheard of in our household despite the youngest being 3! I wrote a post about how this was disrupting my weight loss goals entitled Sabotage.

J is also a demanding 3 year old. He likes my attention (or his sisters when they are home from school) and he is also VERY determined! Hopefully this characteristic will stand him in good stead when he is an adult. This character trait will need careful parenting, as knowing what he wants and pulling it all stops to get it has the potential to be very selfish and offensive.

Anyway- I digress….

These two factors amongst others means that my normally long fuse has shortened and unfortunately my children, notably K, are at the receiving end of my harsh words and tone.
Not very Christian.

Not a good example.

K has become very angry since moving to Japan. Her life is challenging. She walks 3 miles daily to get to school and with her classroom being on the 4th floor she has a lot of stairs to tackle. Being tired is an understandable by product. Being grumpy is too. But when she is grumpy and angry and I respond in kind…

Not very Christian.

Not a good example.

I need exercise self control. To be patient and respond to my children with gentle answers. To train them to be patient, to wait for their turn- be it speaking, for attention or for a toy- to listen to other view points,to not expect their own way all the time and to speak gentle and kind words to each other too.

I need to lead by example and only way that I can do it is with God’s grace and at the moment I am need bucket loads!