Yesterday I read several chapters in Proverbs, carefully noticing all the verses on the sinfulness of anger and being a quarrelsome wife. I know all too well how weak I am in both areas. So I thought I approached them with humility, acknowledging my failures to honor the Lord by controlling my temper and respecting John.

Yeah,  well.  The wheelchair vendor put John in his new chair a few hours after I read those Scriptures. The new chair has multiple problems — far too many to enumerate here — that seriously impact John’s health. We’re talking life-threatening issues.

To make matters worse, his current wheelchair has a motor that should have been replaced. The company lost the replacement motor. But now that his new chair is in our apartment, insurance won’t pay for repairs on the current wheelchair.  We dare not take the current chair into Boston, so we’ll miss the tulips in the Pubic Garden this year (always my favorite excursion).

My new wheelchair wasn’t done correctly either, so we’ve been waiting for this company to rectify that situation. So when we realized how seriously they mangled John’s new chair, I let my anger loose! This company has put us through more frustration than either of us can handle, and last night I had no interest in responding in a Christlike manner.

In my anger, I started demanding that John craft his email to the therapist responsible for designing our chairs in a forceful way. My implication was that I couldn’t trust John to deal with the therapist strongly. Essentially, I disrespected my husband. Again. As I so often do.

This morning my prayer time overflowed with confession as I saw my disobedience to everything the Lord had spoken to me through Proverbs yesterday morning. My heart broke as I saw how I’d dishonored Him with my behavior.

But my prayer list follows confession with thanksgiving for the various ways each Person of the Trinity worked to bring me to salvation. The Father gave His Son as the propitiation for my sin. Jesus took my place on the cross. The Holy Spirit gave me faith to believe that Jesus atoned for my sin. Even my sins of anger and disrespecting my precious husband.

I pray those words of thanksgiving for my salvation every day, but never have they seemed as beautiful as they seemed this morning! Only a broken heart could show me the beauty of salvation.

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