My Facebook post of several days ago read: I can’t afford to live angry or afraid – it makes me ill.

I was serious.

I am serious.

And I am about to use a word that will shock some of you – don’t be, believe me, I’ve used more shocking words and probably more recent than you think. 🙂 Certainly, you know words are vehicles of communication and you will surely understand what I am saying when I say:

If you could live just one week not pissed off, you’d never want to go back.

Just one week without the least little thing making the hair on the back of your neck bristle.
Just one week without letting out one of those sighs, you know the kind, when he/she left the door open again or their shoes under the table again, or their clothes on the floor again, or took out their stuff and just left it right there! Again! Just one week that they did not piss you off at the drop of a hat. Just one week.

Warning. This now gets really ugly. Just one week wherein you were self-aware but not self-centered. Just one week when all that stuff they do is not about you. I recently came face to face with ME. And it was UGLY! The ticked off we get at the inconsideration and selfishness and laziness and yang yang yang of them! Guess what? We just described ourselves. How dare them to leave that out for ME to pick up. See the emphasis? It’s ME not them. Now, should they abandon their stuff? Of course not! But are we offended because they are human or because they inconvenienced us?!  I know the answer. I have LIVED it! And I lived it long enough to make me sick!

This is what you want. Just one week when you see such things, you draw in a sweet breath of peace, smile and softly say gotcha! I’m not going there and you can’t make me. Another big smile. A deep breath of peace and the Sweet Smile of JESUS inside. There ain’t nothing like it! Like I said just a week of it and you will fight yourself to the ground to keep it! 🙂

We don’t have to live angry or afraid. I said LIVE because we all are going to experience anger and fear; this is an angry world, full of fear but we don’t have to LIVE that way even when it snatches us by the throat from time to time. We can breathe in the peace of GOD, smile and say nope, no going there. Not today.

Can we do this perfectly every day? Nope. But we can practice and get better and better at it until we see JESUS Face to face.