Thoughts On Getting Angry

Pretend that I posted this two months ago:

At our retreat last week, for one of our devotionals, Krystle talked about Mark 4:35-41, when Jesus calms the storm on the sea. He woke up and yelled at the wind and the rain. He didn't tell the disciples to stop being babies. (He did get annoyed that they didn't trust him, but that's different, right?) He got mad at the situation.

How often do we blame people for the way they handle situations? This last week, I had to break up two fights at my nonprofit placement. They were nine and ten year-old boys and no one was really hurt, but I'm not very big and it was just kind of a scary thing to be a part of. In both cases, they were boys that I see almost every day and generally really like. But when they were fighting, I did not like them at all. I was so mad at them. And yeah, we're all responsible for our actions. But it is important that I recognize that these boys see violence in their daily lives as a viable option for settling disputes. A big part of what we do at Compartiendo un sueño is to try to teach them otherwise, but it is part of their reality. So is it really fair for me to put all of the blame on them?

What I should be doing is paying attention to the bigger problems this points to. Domestic violence. Poverty. Broken education systems. I should be getting angry that these things happen. Like Jesus yells at the storm to stop, I should be losing my voice yelling at these big storms in the world. I can't make them stop on my own, my voice isn't as powerful as Jesus's voice, but at least I won't be getting mad at the disciples for waking me up.