The Skyscrapers We Build

Anger is the force that crushes down the skyscraper you built. This skyscraper can be built over time consciously while also it can form without us even realizing it. Anger was something I never saw myself having to deal with. Iv'e always been a easy going person. We all get angry and upset at times but it wasn't until high school that I had built up so much anger that it started to consume me and the way I lived.

I remember it like it was yesterday. It was near the beginning of my freshman year of high school and I had just walked home from the bus stop. I walk in the front door of my house expecting to see my mom working in the kitchen but instead I see a teenage girl I had never seen before sitting at my kitchen table. I politely said hello and just assumed she was a friend of my mom’s and continued on as normal. I walk back to my room where my mom follows me in and says that we need to have a chat. Long story short, she had been thrown out of her house that morning by her step-mom, her dad was put in jail, and her biological mom died when she was younger, and the rest of her family lives across the ocean in India. She had nowhere to go and no one to take her in, except my parents.

My dad was working as the chief of police at Centenary College where she was attending and once he found out about the situation he chose to step in. Why would I be angry at God? We are helping a girl in need and I’m angry? Angry at God and angry at my parents. My older brother and only other sibling had gone off to college in Texas so I was the only kid left at the house. At the time I didn't have my license and I was playing lacrosse at school. I needed my parents. I needed them to drive me places. This girl also needed them. Practice would be over and everyones parents would come and pick them up (or they could drive them self). I would sit on the concrete curb in the parking lot and wait. I remember being filled with more and more anger every minute that would pass as I would sit and wait to be picked up. Eventually my mom would roll up and I would climb into the back of the car because the girl would be sitting in the front. This just being the icing on the cake for me. This is just one of the many moments that I felt my skyscraper being built. I quickly went from the center of attention to one who for these next 6 months would go easily unnoticed. 6 months. I was told she would live with us for 2 weeks max. Those 6 months would be filled with questioning God and asking Him the question of “why me?” and “why my family?” I grew very bitter towards my family and especially the girl who had just “replaced” me. I understood that what we were doing was needed and kind and all the things good but it still made me angry. All those times where I would wait on my mom or dad to get me was because the girl would have doctors appointments. Her senior year in high school she was in a major car accident and was almost killed. She now walked with a limp, lost most use of her left arm, and had permanent brain damage. What was wrong with me? I'm mad at this girl who has no control over situation and was mad at my parents for wanting to help? I was clearly in the wrong but couldn't help but grow angrier and angrier. I learned to hide this anger the best I could and never talked to anyone about it. My pride caused me to hold my tongue. I never told anyone how I actually felt. Even after the day she left my house and moved to India, I still held anger in my heart.

It wouldn’t be till years later that I would fully repent of those wrong feelings I had and give them to God. My parents were doing what we are called to do. Love others. I was so blinded by my own selfishness and pride that I couldn't see that in the moment. Looking back on those 6 months I can clearly see that the Lord was working on so many hearts of people around me during that time and also proved to me that His plan is truly always greater than our own. If I would have had it my way things would have turned out much different...and honestly not for the better. Don't let your anger hinder you from seeing the good things that the Lord is doing in your life.