He works in mysterious ways

I have been praying a lot for myself lately...to find a little patience and self control when it comes to my son. It seems like lately all I have been doing is yelling at him. He goes at one speed at all times and that is S-L-O-W--like a turtle. And he gets distracted easily. So if you tell him to go upstairs and get me this one thing and put this thing away, he inevitably forgets to do one of the things--which leads me to remind him of the other. More than once. A little louder this time. And then it's full blown yelling. It also doesn't help when he tries to defend himself and that usually involves blaming of someone else. Instead of just saying "okay, Mom--sorry I forgot" it is always "well, if so and so hadn't of done this, I wouldn't have forgotten that" and so on and so on. Aggravating in the least...but I am the adult and I should get a handle on my anger.

So today at Sunday school our teacher had a class member read out loud Galatians 5: 22-23. It is the passages about fruits of the spirit. Now, I didn't grow up in a church so I had never heard of fruits of the spirit. "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long suffering (which I take to mean patience) gentleness, goodness, faith. Meekness, temperance (here is where I think it means self control), against such there is no law." So...we discussed what we are good at and what we need to work on. I thought about and and came to the conclusion that I am not good at any of the above. I love, but it isn't unconditional, which is the best kind (Thank you Grandma Bright and Grandma Hambrecht); it is hard for me to be happy or find joy--I tend to be the glass is half empty gal; Peace--what is that?; Patience--see above--I have none; Gentleness--nothing again; Faith--there is where I am probably working the most--I have started doing daily devotionals; meekness--again--what is that--I am right--yes, I am; self control--again if I had some of that I wouldn't find myself flying off the handle, with my eyes bugging out--like I am a psycho mom from Hell. So my goal this summer is to work on all of these things and continue working on them until I can at least say I am good at one of them. I think I will be happier and I know my family will be too.