In
Part One, I asked: What is your pet peeve? What drives you absolutely crazy?
What causes you more frustration and resentment than anything else in your
life? What causes you to want to walk out of the situation you are in right now?
Here
are more issues that attempt to rob us of the joy, contentment and peace of the
Lord:
1.
Your mate is attempting to control your relationship; does not agree to enjoy
times of attention focused only on one another; spends much of his/her free
time with his/her friends; etc.
2.
Your mate or best friend is telling your secrets or complaining about you to
other people; they are always trying to change or manage you; you are being
taken for granted; others are failing to apologize; they are self-centered;
have sloppy table manners, or are untidy; etc.
Eventually,
we may stuff our irritations or hurts into our subconscious mind, but they will
resurface again, causing us to erupt in sarcasm, frustration or anger. On
the other hand, we may get to the place where we simply tolerate our spouse,
family and/or friends.
Many
of the issues that became our pet peeves were there prior to committing to our
relationships, but we ignored them until they became a constant issue between
us after marriage. Then these annoying behaviors turn into irksome habits that
plague our peace of mind.
In
order to restore love and contentment to our relationships, we can talk together about
the issue and decide on alternate behaviors that we both agree with, or we can
change our personal feelings about them and decide that they no longer bother
us - they are simply harmless traits and habits of the person that we love.
Prayer:
Father
God, please help us to find a solution for our issues with which we can both
agree. Otherwise, help us to change our focus about habits and foibles in our
mate, family members, children or friends that irritate us. Help us to be happy
that this person is in our life, and show us something to love about them that
negates our irritation.
Teach
us that we have faults too, and we want to be forgiven and accepted. Remind us
that unless we are kindly honest about what bothers us, the other person may
never realize that we are upset about it. Help us to see that they may also
have a legitimate reason for what they do that we never considered, and conversing
will dismiss this issue from our mind.
Thought
for the Day:
Sometimes
our irritation with another person's behavior is seeded in an experience in our
past - some unresolved issue that is triggered by our spouse's, family member's,
child's or friend's behavior; when we accept what we perceive as one another's
faults, we can look for each other's strengths and ways that they are truly a
blessing to us.
