Celebrate Calm Stop Defiance Live Event in Fairfax County, VA

My kids ate WAY too much sugar a few weeks ago.  They ran around crazy, screaming, not listening to anything I said, and I started to lose it.  I know better, and I know how to do this correctly, but that night, the truth is, I too had eaten WAY too much sugar myself, and I did not feel completely in control of myself.  So my husband comes home to find me yelling at the kids to "CALM DOWN!  YOU ARE OUT OF CONTROL!!!"  (The irony of which they of course picked up on.)

He did not say anything to me right then, he just went in the room, and let me go back and forth from the bedroom where I yelled at him about the kids, to the rest of the house, where I yelled at the kids.  He looked at me with pain in his face, but said nothing.  I raged even more, because I thought he was no help at all!  Had I been thinking clearly, I would have realized that he wanted nothing to do with my anxiety, and neither did my kids.

Finally I realized that my anger was escalating, and I locked the kids in their room to bounce off the walls in there, while I washed the dishes.  (Locking them in their room is not a principle of attachment parenting, but neither is yelling.  I just needed a few minutes of peace to get control of myself.)  So as I did the dishes, my husband comes up behind me, and gently, with a warm smile, starts stroking my back.  He says with a smile, "Are we going to become a screaming family now?" We laugh a little.  I feel the muscles in my back begin to unwind.  Without saying anything else, offers me unspoken words of love in his gentle touch, and I can't hold back a return smile.

His calm was contagious.  I immediately felt humility returning to my soul, and remorse begin to set in.  He made me feel like the luckiest wife on Earth in that moment.

I think that's how God reprimands us.  He lets us feel the difference between what we're choosing, and what He is choosing, and gives us the space to come into His calm if we choose-- to choose love instead of rage-- to chose self-control instead of controlling others.  His way is the way of closeness, the way of kindness, the way of self-mastery, and most of all, choice.  I chose a different evening, and apologized to my children.  I chose love.

I choose love.