Friend or Frienemy
I have my own personal critic. Someone I care about. Someone close to me that I admire very much! The thing is, this person seldom says anything good about what I do or what I write or about my hair or anything else; but is quick to point out any errors publically for all the world to see. It hurts. I wish I could say it doesn’t.

Consistent
It happened again a couple weeks ago. I misspelled a name on a blog I wrote. (To my credit, I was consistent throughout the blog in misspelling the name. 🙂 )

Public rebuke
I got a public rebuke from this person who is much smarter than me. It cut. It hurt. I wanted to lash out. But, one benefit of “age” is: I’ve learned to sleep on my reaction overnight.

However, in the spirit of transparency, I have to admit that I DID go to the concordance and looked up the name. Ahhhhh…I was correct. Everything in me wanted to get back on FB and PUBLICALLY rebuke my accuser. My condemner. I am grateful I did not do that. I disciplined myself to wait till the morning light. Even though my “flesh” wanted to publically lash out and say I was right, the SPIRIT reigned me in and I knew I would have to respond privately.

The morning light
Morning came and I again searched the concordance. I was feeling a bit smug. I could hardly wait to tell the person they were wrong and I was right. Has that ever happened to you?

But wait! What’s this??? In the morning light…after a good night’s sleep…I was STUNNED to see that I was WRONG! My accuser was correct. How could I have been so…

Blinded by anger
Have you ever been so angry and hurt that you see what you want to see instead of the facts? That’s what happened to me! I saw the spelling I wanted to see. WOW! I was amazed how my hurt and anger had affected my very eyes! Unbelievable! My eyes had deceived me! My brain read what I wanted to see.

Confessions of an angry woman
So, I talked to God a bit about it. And confessed. And thanked Him for restraining me from lashing out. Kept me from making a fool of myself. WHEW! Kept from my own self-pleasing nature AGAIN! Praising Him for the “Restrainer”…the Holy Spirit active in my life! It is scary what I could have become without HIM!!! Gratitude filled my heart!

Sending a PRIVATE response
My “heart” was finally now right to respond in a godly way. So, I did send that PRIVATE message to my “critic”. On FB.

AND…after admitting I was wrong…I also did some brave things…

Making suggestions
I did suggest that maybe next time they send me a private message instead of doing it publicly. The stunning response was: “I thought about doing it privately.” WOW! Stunning! And to their credit, said they would do that next time. (*SIGH* yes, next time 😉 ) So grateful for God’s “policemen”… of course their goal is to help me to make the best possible “presence” on social media, right? Only God knows the heart! The motive. I will choose to believe the best possible motives.

Expressing sadness to my offender
And I also expressed sadness that there had apparently been nothing good that could be commented on in the blog post. And the person then said PRIVATELY on FB that the post had actually changed their mind about what I had written about. (So, it had actually ministered to them and now I know.)

Life vs. God
Life! It. Is. Hard.
BUT
God is Good! All. The. Time!

How can I help?
Is there something you are dealing with right now? Something you are angry about and can’t get over it? Maybe you don’t even WANT to get over?

Contact me
I’d love to help you work through your anger to the other side. To peace. To joy.

God bless you bunches!

Until next time,