A Soft Answer...

"A soft answer turneth away wrath, but grevious words stir up anger." Proverbs 15:1

How wise was the man who wrote these words.

This morning I had a fresh taste of their lesson.

I was deep into a job, absorbed in all I had to accomplish before a certain amount of time went by, when the phone rang. I was in a rather ticklish position at the moment, but managed to answer it anyway. On the other end of the line was someone who many times just doesn't see things the way I see them, and many times seems to choose my most busy and stressful moments to decide they're going to call me up and let me have a piece of their mind.
Well, I was really not in the mood for it just then. But what could I do? Hang up on them? No, of course not. Didn't matter how rude they were to me, my job was me, not them. I made a neutral reply, and they continued with an unkind answer. Grudgingly I held my sarcastic words and sharp replies in check while they spouted into my ear; and when they got done, I calmly, coldly, and politely terminated the conversation and hung up. I then behaved in a decidedly unChristian manner, angrily continuing the task I had been involved in, lashing out at the empty room, pouring my caustic remarks out to the unhearing caller, preaching to them about how they should just take one moment in their life to think of someone besides themself. *Clears throat* The person I had in mind for them to be kind to was myself, naturally.
So, while I was fuming and quoting the golden rule to them in my head, the phone rings. I looked at the caller id. It was Them. "What do you want NOW?!" I rudely asked the machine. "You're only calling back because you want something else from me."

But I answered the phone anyway.

"Hello."

"Kyrie? I shouldn't have answered you so rudely. I can't see what's going on there with you; all I see is what's going on here at my house: laundry to do, clean dishes needing to be put away, dirty dishes needing to be done, breakfast to be eaten, school work to be done before a certain time. But I still shouldn't have snapped at you that way."

Well! I sure wasn't expecting that one!

After I hung up, I could hear my self-righteous arguments replaying in my head, and was ashamed of myself. Yes, that person had been rude. Yes, they had been rude to me many times in the past. But the Lord had used my forcing myself to be calm and fakely courteous to rebuke their heart, cause them to call back to admit their wrong, and then to smite my conscience with my holier-than-thou attitude.

*Sigh* Will I ever learn?

The Lord is patient and gracious. He remembers I am dust.