Bottled Up

Wow, don't really know where that came from at all. I just got done yelling at M. over something that not only do I know nothing about, but is completely none of my business. It was strange because I could feel, as the conversation went on, anger bottling up inside me then just completely erupting. It was like I had no idea what was happening and was powerless to stop it. The tempter got a good one out of me there. Sorry, M.

On a lighter note, I had a neat thought today. I was reading about some Saints as I was eating today and something occurred to me: Kids don't grow up saying, "I want to be a Saint when I grow up." I was listening to a song on the radio, I think by Travis Tritt (yeah, I know, country; sometimes I just can't help myself), and it was about a kid who wanted to be a big singer guy. The chorus started out with "I'm going to be somebody." It then occurred to me that the Saints probably weren't saying they wanted to grow up "being somebody," either. They lived ultimately for God. There was one girl, it blows my mind thinking about this, Saint Agape, who was nine years old when she and her mother and two older sisters were arrested for being Christians. The Emperor, I believe it was Diocletian, had her whipped and beaten in order that the mother and daughters would renounce Jesus to save their daughter and sister. When they didn't yield, Agape was thrown into the fire and came out unburnt. They were all beheaded. This story just blew me away. A nine year old girl with that much faith. Why can't I have that much faith? Why can't I give my life like that? Why is my biggest problem figuring out what to do after I graduate? I wish I could follow Christ with that much determination. I wish I could have my eyes so heavily fixed on God and the Next World that I wouldn't care about "being somebody" in this world. My true desire (or what I want my true desire to be) is to be so focused on God that I am blind to this world. How do you do that? Yes, as Christians, our foremost task is to love God with all our hearts, bodies, minds, and souls, but how is that manifested today? Is it through a wife and kids? Is it through work? Is it through men's group? I'll marinade in these questions for a while. (And I'll pray that it's in a wife and kids)