The Saturday Devotional: Anger tricks her Mum taught her!

10 Oct The Saturday Devotional: Anger tricks her Mum taught her!

Agnes, a banker and mother of two, shares an old trick her mother taught her to control anger.

🎯She liked her mother’s visit to their home in Ogba, Lagos, because her presence made her husband a gentleman “all over again.”

🎯She said he was very gentle when they first met in a supermarket in Ikeja and all through courtship.

🎯But a year into the marriage the volcanic anger in him started erupting with an alarming frequency.

🎯The rest of her story: You know women now, anytime he went off, I had to respond so he didn’t turn me into a munu.

💥My parents and his tried had to intervene several times but it wasn’t working.

💥We loved each other but somehow his fuse got shorter, and perhaps mine too.

💥You remember that village scene where a woman tries to fight her husband with insults and when he moves to beat her up, she runs out, shouting ‘egba mi o’ (save me o) to neighbors

💥One day when my mother visited us a similar situation happened in our area.

💥The woman was really screaming and I was like ha, in this Lagos too?

💥The following day, when my husband went out, my mother called me to her room and asked what I felt about the “egba mi o’ of that woman.

💥Without waiting for my response or whether she saw it in my body language, she proceeded to teach me what she called an old trick.

💥’Agnes, next time you feel so angry you want to scream at your husband, rush to get water in your mouth and keep it there until you calm down somehow,’ she advised

☀️”Never, it is a sign of weakness,” I thought but couldn’t say it out.

💥My Mum is the praying type, full of wisdom and sometimes I sensed my husband wished I could be like her.

💥Long story short, I tried it on the next two occasions he really got mad at home. He kept on raving but I said nothing – mouth full of water. Not that it was easy o; certainly not. I ‘sha’ tried.

💥One Sunday after church, our pastor called us and wanted to know why, according to my husband, I was using charms at home.

💥Hmmmmm, I couldn’t hold the laughter o.

💥When I explained to our pastor he joined in the laughter. He said nothing.

💥I looked at my husband and noticed his eyes scanning the floor, embarrassed.

💥Yet the pastor said nothing, as if he wanted the moment to speak for itself.

💥Then later got up to shake our hands and said, “Enjoy your marriage, my children!”

💥 I moved over and hugged Paul.

💥 We never discussed it after that day but there has been absolute peace at home; where there should be anger we now have lots of laughter.

🎯Psychologists say that one of the most important things we can do when someone is angry at us is to stay calm.

🎯The Bible says, ‘A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.’