The other night, I blew up at Nathan. Since then, I’ve wanted to write about it. I’m not going to go into a lot of detail because it’s not about me or Nathan. No, it’s about reactions…MY reactions.

Well, I wasn’t going to go into detail, but I’m finding myself “stuck” without it, so here we go.

Sunday night, I wasn’t feeling well and Nathan was hungry. Because of Scott, I had food in the house, so I defrosted some hamburger meat for spaghetti. Seemed like an easy dinner to make, when you’re not feeling well.

Normally, when I cook, I offer to fix the kids plates: some say yes…some say no. Almost always, Nathan is a “yes” answer, but this time, as dinner was done, I felt the need to sit down, so I called the kids in to make their own plates.

Carolyn was first, fixed her plate, and sat down to eat…no problem. Nathan, on the other hand, was having difficulty.

The only spoon I have for pasta really sucks. The teeth on the spoon are barely there, so anything you grab slides right off. I’ve “wanted” to buy a normal one but haven’t had the money, so I just deal with it, but for Nathan, fixing his plate seemed impossible, so he was complaining.

Carolyn hollered advice to him to use a fork. Easy fix…if mom had washed dishes, but all our forks were dirty from Christmas and the day after, so I jumped up to wash a fork and help him. All the while, he was complaining.

As I was digging in the seek for a fork to wash (they were under a pile of dishes), Nathan kept voicing his complaints with a whine, and it was then that I slammed the cupboard and yelled, “I’M TRYING!!”

It may seem normal enough, but in our house, it’s not. I rarely react in this way, and when I do, I know the older kids have flashbacks.

Back when I was drinking, I would slam and yell all the time. Every door frame in our old apartment was separated from the wall. I could tell you when all that began, but the reason is heart-wrenching, and I’m not in the mood to have my heart wrenched, so we’ll leave that one inside.

Anyway, to me, there’s no justification in acting that way. There was nothing righteous about it. I was not defending God or anything like that, and if I was overwhelmed, then that’s my fault for holding onto things that probably belonged to God.

No, there’s no excuse for me screaming, and I “am” hard on myself on purpose because I’m called to be like Jesus. I don’t find stories in the bible to justify my behavior. No, I read the bible to become it and “change” my behavior.

This moment happened, Holy Spirit convicted me right away, and peace was made before we fell asleep, and the next morning, everyone woke up happy.

I’m almost tempted to say…if I’ve done something that needs justifying, I’m probably in the wrong.

I no longer expect others to be a certain way, but I absolutely expect myself to be a certain way, and that’s okay. Slamming the cupboard and screaming was not “being love” for Nathan, but reconciling things afterward was.

Oh, and by the way, I threw away the spoon and will spend the money to get one of those pasta-claw-things.