Don’t you just hate those times in your life when you completely lose it and turn in to someone you would rather not know exists? Come on, you know what I am talking about…at least I hope you do because if you don’t it means I am even worse than I imagine! People have asked me what are my pet peeves. Here is one of my biggest pet peeves on the road: I put my blinker on to signal that I am changing lanes. There is a car ahead of me and a car behind me and I am confident that there is room in the lane for my car. After signaling, I begin to move over. When I am halfway into the lane, the car behind me steps on the gas and then lays on the horn and tries to blast me right off the road. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?????? At that moment, I not only have a pet peeve but that person BECOMES my pet peeve. Sometimes I handle those moments with some grace and I forgive those debts as mine have been forgiven. Not last week.
Last week when the young woman behind me became my number one pet peeve on the road, I lost it. In two seconds I went from being a fairly rational, kind, compassionate person to an absolute screaming meany. One second I was having a nice phone conversation with our youngest daughter through the wireless system in the car and the next second I was screaming at the top of my lungs and gesturing with both hands (don’t worry, no middle fingers were involved – that is definitely beneath me…) and trying to make my neck swivel 180 degrees all at the same time. As if I hadn’t already made a big enough fool of myself, the young woman had the nerve to then change lanes and pull up beside me and give me attitude. Picture snakes on the side of my neck because that is how thick my veins must have looked with the anger coming out of my very pores. I turned my head to the side and screamed at her some more about the brilliant use of blinkers and how she would do well to pay attention to them and on and on. My onramp came up so I split to the right and she kept going and I tried to catch my breath and then I remembered our youngest daughter was still on the phone listening to my tirade. She quickly ended the phone call after that and I was left to my own company. Yikes.
As I drove down the highway, I marveled at how quickly I had come unglued. My day had been fairly good up to that point so I knew it must be something deeper. What I realized is that even though I am good at “being strong” and “keeping it together,” just beneath my calm, cool and collected exterior is an anxious and stressed out interior. It was the day before Easter and I was supposed to be preach something about how resurrection is what happens when we each live as Christ in this world and I could have been arrested for indecent being! Thank God for those times that we see ourselves in a mirror and do not like what we see and can then choose to do something about ourselves. Most things in life come down to faith or fear, even for those who are not religious. If you look at my life you can trace the lines to faith or fear. Turning into a monster in a moment is a line that can be traced to fear. From there we can choose faith. The rest of my drive that day before Easter was spent thinking about how God has my back and will not let me crash on the rocks. The next time someone becomes my pet peeve, I will try to choose faith and live resurrection. Until then, I am breathing deeply and taking one day at a time.