on self control

Does anyone know the "Fruits of the Spirit" song? I learned it a long, long time ago at a youth retreat. More recently, Jordan learned it at church. It goes something like this:

"The Fruit of the Spirit's not a coconut
The Fruit of the Spirit's not a coconut
If you wanna be a coconut, you might as well hit it
You can't be a Fruit of the Spirit
'Cause the Fruits are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness,
goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self contro-o-o-o-l
Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
gentleness, self control"

Catchy, right? Jordan had a great time learning this song from Mrs. Jananne and it came in handy for me as a mom, too. Whenever Jordan would have an "impulsive moment", I would sit him down and have a conversation kind of like this:

Me: "Now Jordan. Don't you know that Jesus wants you to be able to control yourself and make good decisions?"

Jordan: "Yes."

Me: "Well, do you think it was a good decision to smack your brother just because he didn't want to watch The Rugrats on Netflix?"

Jordan: "No."

Me: "I know it's tough when things don't go your way, but you can't just hit your brother because he does something you don't like. You need to have self control. You know... like the song."

Both of us sing the song together.

Jordan: "Oh. I love all the Fruits of the Spirit. Except self control."

I had to stifle my laughter. Because I totally get where he's coming from. At 30 years old, I still haven't mastered the art of self control. Sometimes I think I'm doing really well, and then it backfires in my face.

Take, for instance, my behavior at Shaun's doctor's appointment a few weeks ago. Shaun has seen the same neurologist since he was 2 weeks old. We love her. She's always taken such good care of him. She's a very popular doctor and works at Children's Health Care of Atlanta, so we usually have to wait awhile to see her at our appointments. I've never, ever complained about the wait time. So imagine my surprise when I was asked to reschedule Shaun's appointment when I was 20 minutes late last month. I am never, EVER late for these appointments. The reason we were late this time was because traffic around the hospital was being rerouted due to road construction. We signed in and then sat in the waiting room for about 30 minutes before the receptionist called me up and told me that I had to reschedule. I thought she was joking at first. I even asked her if she was serious. She was. I tried to explain that we had driven an hour and half and that we always had to wait at least an hour for our appointments. She didn't care. Because, you see, Dr W had several new patient appointments that afternoon and she didn't want to get behind on her schedule.

Wow.

By this time, Shaun had joined me at the counter. He smiled and said, "Yay. I don't have to have my appointment!"

The receptionist glanced at him and said, with a little smile, "I don't think mom's saying yay."

I then looked at her and said, "No. Actually I'm pretty pissed right now."

Not my finest moment, at all.

The only thing I accomplished by saying this was to embarrass Chris, Shaun, and myself. I rescheduled the appointment and then we went home.

A month later, we found ourselves making the trek to Atlanta again, for the same appointment. Jordan was with us this time... it just couldn't be helped. We were on time. Early, even. And we still had to wait almost 2 hours. After the first hour, I went out to the nurse's station to find out how much longer it would be. It was already 5:00 and the office was shutting down. Only one nurse was left. I calmly asked for the office manager. She had already gone home. Of course. The sweet nurse brought a complaint form for me to fill out. She also brought Shaun some juice. I spent about 30 more minutes writing a 3 page letter (front and back) explaining my totally justifiable anger. In a nice way, I promise.

We continued to wait. I had a hair appointment and the boys and Chris needed to be back to church by 7:00 for movie night. I lost all sense of self control when I looked at my phone and realized that it was a quarter til 6. I knew it would take at least an hour and a half to get where we needed to be. Probably a lot longer with Friday traffic in Atlanta. I told Shaun to put his shoes on and that we were leaving. We gathered our things and he wandered out into the hall, where he ran into the medical student who had just examined him. Shaun was happy to announce that we were leaving. She just looked at me. "Oh. You're leaving?"

I began to yell. Really yell. So loud that Chris heard me in the waiting room and came back to see what was wrong. Dr W must have heard me too, because she miraculously appeared. And I let her have it. And a few curse words slipped out. And Shaun looked at the medical student and muttered, "She's PISSED!"

Way worse than my last not-my-finest moment.

Of course I cried. And then I had to apologize. The whole time I was thinking, "Man, I hate that stupid self control!"

Really, shouldn't I have a better handle on this by now. Word vomit has always plagued me. I feel it coming up and I know I'm going to say something I'm going to regret, but I just can't stop it. I really can't believe I cussed out my child's doctor. My child's Jewish doctor... who knows that we're Christians. Not exactly my idea of being a good witness. And to behave that way in front of my son. My 11 year old, impressionable son who looks to me as an example for how to behave. And then there's Jordan. He was there, too. I could just hear him thinking to himself, "Mama, you just can't cuss out the doctor because something happens and you don't like it. You need to have self control!"

I had to sit down with both of my children later on that night, over ice cream at McDonald's, and explain that I acted inappropriately. Not an easy thing to do...having your children witness you doing the exact same thing that they get punished for.

Regardless of the circumstances that led up to this moment, my behavior was wrong. Not very lady-like and definitely not the way my Heavenly Father wanted me to respond to this situation.

My goal, my prayer is for my tongue to be tamed. This is what I'm striving for, among other things. I really feel that conquering my tongue will be a huge milestone in the act of obedience for me. I look forward to the day when I can take things in stride and not flip out. For now, unfortunately, I'm just a work-in-progress.