rage

We stayed home yesterday. Drew the blinds, hunkered down. It wouldn't have been terribly unusual on a Friday morning to do this had it not been a great day to go to the pool. Get some fresh air and play in the pool with the kids, do some laps. exercise. But yesterday was not the day to go to the embassy.
After friday morning prayers, a large crowd men from Amman and beyond gathered in front of our Embassy to protes against the anti-islamic Youtube video that has been circulating.  Following Libya, Egypt and Yemen, it seemed that Jordan was now given the chance to express their rage. These events have placed every Embassy and American worker around the world in a position to realize the unique reality that we live in as expatriates in a Muslim society.
So we stayed home.
Steve received alerts every fifteen to twenty minutes or so, updates on the crowd amassing in front of the gates. We checked an Amman news page online and saw pictures of men burning the U.S. flag and chanting. Was Amman to give way to rage like these other countries?
In moments like these, all illusion of human security and strength fall away. In many ways, we know that Jordanian security forces are organized, strong. Yet strong enough to protect Americans against their Arab brothers? To defend the Christian West against Islamic righteousness?
And in this moment, my courage failed. I prayed with Steve, on my knees. For protection. For the binding of anger, rage, intent to murder.
Minutes later, Steve received a text that half the crowd went home. But there was still a remnant trying to decide whether or not to scale the Embassy walls. There was both relief and remaining apprehension.
And we prayed. Again. On my knees.
By nightfall, the larger crowd had dissipated, assumably after deciding not to venture further toward the Embassy. I can only trust that God had answered our prayers, quieted the rage and allowed the crowd to do what was right- to go home to their families.
Another small rally formed later that evening, but again, it ended peacefully.
Praise God.
....
In all of my prayers for the world around me, for men (and women) battling rage that could have ended in destruction, death, I forgot one important thing: my own heart. Though I spent time praying for others, I was not aware of my own stress, mounting fear and subsequently intense anger that was building in me throughout the last few days. And like a pressure cooker, my anger was building into a rage that I saw unleashed later that night.

Why is it so easy to hurt those who are closest to you?
Because in times of stress, he tends to detach and execute and I tend to emote, to reach out for something reassuring and affirming?
To go so blindly about that day, focusing on the unfolding world events, so unaware of the anger-- that we had to stay inside, fearing that exit might prove to be harmful to us or the kids, that we could be separated as a family if things erupted beyond what was expected....
And the list goes on, as it usually does in a woman's mind. Yet I didn't take time to check my heart and it began brewing anger against the one who brought us here (neglecting the fact that ultimately, it was He who brought us here) and who wasn't spending the day as I wanted- close to me, talking to me, comforting me.
Why is it so easy to mask selfishness by using the words, "I need...!" when I overlook the stress that he has been under, aware of so much more that is going on in this region.
I push, I pick and I hurt. I am so tired.
And I am reminded again that love, according to 1 Corinthians 13, is first of all: patient. I only began to understand why Paul would list patience as the first attribute of love quite recently. Before that, baffled at its prominence in love's true characteristics. And yet I see now how patient He is in allowing the world to go on as it is as I understand that love needs to be free to choose.
It is so hard to be patient when you feel that you have reason to be discontent, angry, afraid. And how much love depends on the ability to be patient when you see, year by year, more and more of each other's faults and inadequacies.
So while I spent scarce moments on my knees for the world and its rage, I needed much more than that in praying for my own anger, my own rage, the state of my heart.
Then I needed to ask forgiveness, again. Isn't marriage so humbling?
I've been reading a chapter in Proverbs each morning. Seeing how very central the condition of my heart is to my attitude and to my words, leading to actions. How I need to pray to keep my heart free from the destructiveness of anger in this season, though I feel so imprisoned by it at times. And to realize that just as the world is embroiled in a war that is unseen, so is my marriage, my family, my own heart.
How can I be proclaiming Christ and His true peace when I know it so little?
Thanks be to God for His patience with us- with me- in teaching us how to love as He does...
I covet your prayers for the Middle East, for our family and my heart.

soli Deo gloria

And remembering to be thankful that...

He governs the affairs of men,
His quieting of rage in Amman...and in me,
Concerned calls from family and friends,
A return to "normalcy" today,
Time to swim and have brunch out this morning,
God's mercy,
Forgiveness,
A clean car- dust free for a...few hours,
New flowers on the patio...