Slow to anger

Lately, I've noticed how quick I am to get angry. I could blame it on a lot of things. I could make excuses and ignore my behavior. But I don't. It is way too noticeable. So I pray, everyday, that God would soften my heart, calm my spirit and make me slow to anger and quick to love. I'm grateful for the Lord's grace and provision, as I've seen small changes in my attitude from praying this small prayer.

Knowing that faith cannot grow unless it's tested, I was prepared for many "tests of faith" regarding this issue of anger. Sometimes I would succumb to the angry side of me, others I would quietly refrain and pray. Today,however, brought about a much different feeling inside of me. Where should I begin....

Over the last two weeks, Patrick and I have been trying to let Piper stay out of his crate more often when we're doing things upstairs or when we're leaving for a short time. When we leave the house, we put a baby gate up so he cannot leave the living room. He has been fairly good, minus the chowing down of my Hershey kisses with caramel (foil included). That situation didn't make me angry as much as scared. I called the vet nearly in tears. Piper has most certainly been my most consistent friend over the last two months and he ate 8 oz of chocolate (which is not good for dogs.). The chocolate, nor the foil, phased him one bit. Thankfully.

Today I had a doctors appointment near Greensburg, so after my appt I ran a few errands. I got home and let Piper out, played with him and such, then had to leave to do a few other things. Thinking back on our recent successes with leaving Piper out, I put up the gate, gave him a treat and off I went. I was gone for about an hour, which was apparently enough time to do this....

I yelled, "PIPER!" and he came up to me thinking he was going to get something. Instead, I put him in his crate and walked around the house. I called Patrick and calmly explained what had happened and asked him to come home as soon as he possibly could. This is what I think happened: Piper jumped onto the chair, jumped down onto the floor, knocked over a basket full of papers and plastic bags, chewed everything that he could from there, knocked down a box of tissues, ate the box to shreds then proceeded to eat the tissues. He ran into the kitchen and got into the trash, pulled out all he could, then ran upstairs and got into the bathroom trash (which is a enjoyable hobby of his) and made a trail through the upstairs of bathroom trash items. There were plastic bags in his crate and papers pulled off the top of his crate, one chewed newspaper, a wet flip flop (which he HAD to dig for in the closet) and an array of miscellaneous items.

After calming down, I took him outside to do his thing then came back in. I then beat the dog. Beat is a strong word, I really just smacked his butt until my hand hurt, he seemed unfazed, so I used my sneaker to do the rest. I put him back in his crate and crawled over the gate (he didn't even knock it over!) and sat in the chair to read the newspaper until Patrick got home. I didn't want him to miss this mess Piper had happily made for us.

All of this to say that I did pretty well with my anger struggle today. Also, I'm not sure I want to get another dog anymore.