Chapter 3: My Personal Experience
Stop being angry! Turn from your rage! t Do not lose your temper – it only leads to harm (Psalm 37 8 NLT)
Praise the Lord. Before I obeyed the Lord to share this message in Church more than fifteen yean ago, I had to pray to the Lord to help me, because) knew I would definitely be exposing myself. A pastoOR must be sincere and open unto the Lord, and I tell you, His sufficient grace makes this possible as long as one submits.
Incident #6: A Brawl With My Cherie-A Show Of Anger
One Friday evening in the month of July, 1997, I returned home from the church office at some minutes past six in the evening when I met my wife already waiting in the compound where we lived at the time. She had come back tired from work far away and expected to have met me at home, since the church office where I was working at the time as a full-time pastor was just about three bus-stops away. But surprisingly when she arrived home from work, she met the door locked. She had intended to attend classes for her masters programme that Friday evening at LASU (Lagos State University) after the close of work, but she changed her mind and came home straight from work all the way from V.1 (Victoria Island) and met the door locked We only had one key left for the padlock and I didn’t see the need to leave it with the security man as we usually did. And more so, she always met me at home after her evening lectures, (except the periods I had picked her from work and driven her to school in our family car), and since the church office then wasn’t far away from home, and so, I would take care of our kids before her arrival.
I had an appointment in church that day, came back home and went out again after remembering that I hadn’t picked my son from the day care. I took the key along with me because I thought I would be back briefly before she comes back home.
By the time I opened the gate to drive in, I saw my wife sitting quietly on a ledge that demarcated a barren land inside the compound just few meters opposite the gate. As soon as I saw her countenance, I did exactly what a reasonable husband should have done. And of course I did it the best I could. But I guess my best wasn’t good enough after all.
I walked towards my beautiful wife, and feeling so sorry to have kept her waiting outside; I started to apologize, and with a prolonged emphasis I chanted romantically, oh! Helle darling, weet darling, oh I’m sorry’
She didn’t answer And 1 said to her, ‘Chene, (Darling) Fin greeting you. I felt so sorry because I knew how she
felt, after coming home from that distance. She expected me to be home so she could just rest a bit before going for her lectures, but that wasn’t possible as she met the door locked. All my plea was rebuffed as she replied, ‘Since you knew you were going out, why didn’t you give the Malam (Security man) the key? She retorted. She was angry and feeling hurt and I was so apologetic and very calm I emphasized, ‘I am sorry‘ few times more, but it didn’t go down well. After a while I started losing my patience because I felt I didn’t lock her out deliberately but only thought I could dash out quickly and come back before her arrival. Secondly, I got infuriated as she didn’t accept my humble apology I tried explaining to her the unavoidable circumstance that prevented me from getting back home on time. But my entire plea fell back on my face. By this time anger was already firing up in my mind with slight molecular tremor in my body. She went upstairs, not bothering to help with some of the things in the car after I had driven in.
As soon I got upstairs with her, I tried salvaging the situation, but wasn’t successful as we had a heated argument.
Anger Gained More Strength Over Me
Have you ever tried apologising several times to your partner in order to save a situation, and then you raised your voice just to justify your humility, because he or she wouldn’t give you the benefit of the doubt? O yes! And I guess you’ll say something like this, ‘But I’ve told you I’m sorry’ or “How many times will I say am sorry?‘
I started to feel hurt as the anger grew and blew up my emotions until, ‘KABOOM!”-our communication fuse blew
By this time (just about ten minutes of strife), we adopted the attitude of ‘To your tents o Israel“, She entered the bedroom while I went into the guest room. With thoughts, bombarding my mind as fast as machine gun bullets, I became restless and hurriedly came out of the guest room to the corridor, walked past the open bedroom door and said to her ‘I’m going out‘ and I immediately left the house
- Anger truly unresolved can break fellowship and separate the best of friends if allowed to take its course.
Many weeks before this incident, I had thought of visiting a pastor friend of mine in the same city who was living about thirty-five to forty minutes’ drive from where we resided. And without thinking, I took off and left without the car. I didn’t tell her where I was going and she didn’t ask me either.
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