Yelling is a choice …. Yelling is a choice. 

I am struggling. This is my current battle waging. I am impatient, I want my J girl to hurry up. 


I am learning that being on time is never more important than speaking kindly to her.

Getting schoolwork done is never more important than living and breathing patience.

Obedience is not effective when enforced by fear, by volume.

When my frustration wells up in my throat and swells my voice and she hasn’t stopped moving, but never in the direction I want her to go, when I send her for shoes and she comes back barefoot with pen and paper ….


 …. to write me messages about how much she loves me …. 


Yelling is a choice, and I am desperate to choose joy, to choose gratitude over Satan.

“When I choose–and it is a choice–to crush joy with bitterness, am I not purposefully choosing to take the way of the Prince of Darkness? Choosing the angry way of Lucifer because I think it is more effective–more expedient–than giving thanks? ~ A.V. One Thousand Gifts

Scripture is ripe with it …

“Whoever is patient has great understanding, but one who is quick-tempered displays folly.” ~Proverbs  14:29


“My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness God desires.” ~ James 1:19-20


“…. do not embitter your children, or they will become discouraged.” ~ Colossians 3:21.

…. they will become discouraged. How can we love each other sacrificially, joyfully when she is discouraged and I am angry?  


The reality is that I set the tone of this household on a moment by moment basis.

Do I choose patience and gratitude for my wee ones, and teach my babes that obedience can be joyful, that loving well takes time, and slow breaths, and sacrifice, and sometimes at the expense of punctuality?


My heart cries out for it. I need grace in the choosing. 

~M.