Are You Troubled ?

I have been rejoicing in the LORD because I am not troubled. Not because there has been a decrease in problems, in fact just the opposite.
This gift of not being troubled did not arrive on my doorstep one day like some new tonic. Take this and no more troubles. No.........I would have to say this gift of not being troubled actually arrived when I was very troubled, yet it did not seem to help my feeling troubled for a very long time.
My anger problem was getting worse. I was attempting to use parenting skills that gave my child choices and loving consequences for defiance and acts of disrespect. Giving a child a consequence lovingly required an attitude of love. I was a screamer , but now my child was screaming at me. I did not want to give her consequences for doing the same thing I was doing. Thus the anger was building up. When it would explode out of me I would later feel terrible.
For me the answer came when I attended a Parenting Workshop in Little Rock , AR . Ester Williams was the guest speaker and her topic was managing anger. Her presentation was to help teachers and parents present a plan of anger management to children. As I listened and took in what she had to say I knew this was the key to my own anger management.
Until her workshop I had never heard that our emotions are the result of what we think.
So what I was thinking was really underneath my anger. First I had to become sensitive to what those thoughts, before the anger eruption really were. This took time and it took humility. If I could make myself sit down and write about my anger eruption , only when I was able to say, "Lord, help me , know what was I thinking," did I ever have anything to write.
Slowly but surely I began realising what thoughts were feeding my anger.

As my car broke twice and I am told it will soon need more repairs, the washing machine stopped spinning out the water in the last cycle, and the income that I depend on still barely covers my necessities , I am not troubled. I would have been and am sometimes for a season, until I realize what thoughts are feeding that emotion. When I read Luke 24:37 the other morning I wondered if the disciples knew the depth of what Jesus had just said to them.

Luke 24:37 And He said unto them, "Why are ye troubled? and why do thoughts arise in your hearts?"

I praise the LORD today for the thoughts He has placed in my heart. That He cares for the birds and that I am of more value than they. He will take care of me.