Hasty Reading

As an Elementary Special Education teacher, I see a LOT of difficulties in reading, whether it's in attacking a word, reading fluently, or comprehending what they've read. Today, I had my own reading troubles...

Last night, I posted a simple question on a Facebook wall. Today, I got the notification of a comment, and the first words I see are: Patience is a virtue. I was ticked!

I threw my phone back in my bag. I know patience is my greatest strength, but from my perspective, my post did not call for a reminder of patience.  Besides, I was being helpful! Fine! I won't be helpful. Yeah, thats productive. If I had left it there, I would have missed some crazy blessings, and shortchanged both of us.

I went back a few minutes later, and saw that I had let anger take over and missed the rest of the post. It was delightful!

My kids do this too. They omit words, skip entire sentences, or even pretend to read, and then their comprehension suffers. My comprehension suffered because I didn't read through or hear the person out!

I proceeded to eat some humble pie and apologize to the person. Would they have known I was mad? Not initially. They may have wondered why they  weren't hearing from me. Through this, God granted humility, forgiveness, and the opening of a really good conversation!

Anger closes doors. Joy, love, and forgiveness open them.