Earlier this week, while I was frantically trying to finish my work and leave for a meeting I was already late for, our lawyer-neighbor came up the driveway. I was thinking "I don't really have time for this," but I went out to greet her.
The first words out of her mouth were, "If your f---ing dogs come in my yard again, I'll kill them !!"
It blindsided me. Being blindsided with anger has often shown me some dark depths I didn't know were in me. This time, however, absolutely no answer-in-kind flared up in my spirit. The kids were there, so I wouldn't have answered her with angry cursing anyway: but what surprised me was that that filth was not IN me whatever. That surprised me, and I praised God for what He's done !
But she obviously wasn't in a mood to talk about the problem: so I waved at her and went back in the house, and sent the kids to get the dogs. (Only later did I think it might not have been the best course to send them out where an angry lawyer was screaming threats: but they said she didn't talk to them.)
That night I also talked to the kids about the other thought the experience raised: that a lot of people think the best solution to problems is to kill something (or someone). I advised them to stay away from such people.
