Keep-Your-Cool Challenge Day 2: Love Keeps No Record of Wrongs

Yesterday was Day 1 in my 30-day quest to fight back against the habit of angry words and voices that had crept into my mornings and other parts of my days.  I prayed for patience with my 3-year-old.  I paid less attention to the clock, and more attention to controlling my reactions to it.  And I celebrated with Maisy when we made it to the car without raising our voices.  Throughout the day, I was mindful of the volume of my voice and the burning in my chest when I felt myself running out of my store of patience, and I made it through Day 1.  And it felt pretty good!

Day 2: Start with Prayer... for Love

Today is Day 2, and I was pulled back again to the fruit of the Spirit, and this time, to Love.  I reread 1 Corinthians 13, that much-invited wedding ceremony guest, and I read it with a focus on my goal: Less anger, more calm.  Here’s what I read:

⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

⁸ Love never fails.    1 Corinthians 13:4-8

Patient again!  That’s good.  I can never have too much of that!  But it goes beyond patience. 

Day 2: Extend Unmerited Kindness

Kindness, yes.  That I can apply.  The kind of “grace”-kindness that a mentor mom spoke about at MOPS today, that “unmerited favor” that we receive from God, and need to strive to pass on to others.  For instance, extending grace to my daughter when her voice is whiiiiiiining and my ears physically hurt.  Favor and kindness, even when I’d rather plug my ears or repeat the screechy sounds back to her, as if that helps (Um no, it doesn’t help.  Tried that before.  Bad idea.). 

Unmerited kindness.  Kindness because I love her, even if kindness didn’t mean she’d pull her head up from under the covers so I could brush her hair this morning.  Kindness just because I love her.  Kindness didn’t stop her from refusing to have her hair brushed, and didn’t stop the natural consequence of me walking away to brush my own hair since she wasn’t ready, which didn’t stop her from slamming herself into her room when she decided she was ready “RIGHT NOW!”  Kindness didn’t stop those things, but my voice stayed calm, my anger stayed low, and my 3-year-old chilled out in her room while I dried my hair, and then brought me her hairbrush with a smile.  It always works out that well, right?  ;)

Day 2: Try Something Different

I used to do this all the time when I was a teacher of students with challenging behaviors: Try something different.  When a routine or a strategy or a whatever stops working, then switch it up.  For some reason, I hadn’t applied this to our morning routine, which clearly has not been working. 

Breakfast-potty-brush teeth-get dressed-brush hair.  Breakfast-potty-brush teeth-get dressed-brush hair. Breakfast-potty-brush teeth-get dressed-brush hair. 

We’ve done it this way for as long as I can remember.  Sure, I’ve tried sticker charts, time outs, setting a timer and dangling a reward (TV time), threatening that we’re going to be late (haha).  But I’ve never really considered changing the routine itself. 

So today I tried it.  And I’ll admit that Maisy kind of freaked out at first when I told her we were going to try going potty BEFORE breakfast.  Giving her some warning the night before might have helped.  But I offered to go with her to the potty, to help her, and she ended up trotting off with me.  I had her get dressed right away after that, reminding her that I’d pour her cereal next (It certainly didn’t hurt my cause that we have Lucky Charms in the house).  And voila!  Potty, check!  Get dressed, check!  Half her morning “to-do” list done before she even sat down at the table. 

We tried something different.

Day 2: “Love…. Keeps No Record of Wrongs”

Here’s a tough one for me.  I have a good visceral memory.  The “wrongs” sometimes build up in my chest from one moment, one hour, one day to the next.  I remember this VERY clearly from when we had the big kids with us.  Instead of my frustration level starting again at zero on each new day, or for each new “behavior”, I’d be starting somewhere much higher. 

If you visualize a thermometer with green, yellow, orange, and red levels reaching from bottom to top, I’d be starting somewhere between yellow and orange before the day had even started.  It’s not necessarily that extreme with Maisy, but still, sometimes I can jump to boiling red so much faster than I should for some small misdemeanor.  It’s because something inside of me is keeping a visceral record of wrongs, or maybe because I’m too busy or distracted, or because I’m too tired.  Whatever the reason, I need to find ways (A break, big or small? Some serious deep breaths? Mindfulness of it? Prayer before, during, and after?) to bring my “Record of Wrongs” meter back to the green zone.  Because it’s fair to my kiddos, it’s actually better for my health, and because that’s what 1 Corinthians 13 is talking about.   

And by the way, I think we can extend ourselves a bit of that same grace, and lack of record-keeping.  So if we mess up and blow up, we get to start back at “green” too.