After moving into our current house, my husband Bill set up a small home studio. Soon we started recording. The recording process can be time consuming. Vocal cords don’t respond the same all the time. Sometimes there are tech issues or other hang-ups. On one occasion, due to an oversight, previously recorded tracks disappeared and we had to rerecord. It would have been impossible to keep up the good work without patience. Patience and gentleness go hand in hand.

Gentleness is a rare gem. Jesus says of Himself that He is gentle (Matthew 11:28-29):

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”

Prophet Isaiah wrote about Jesus (Isaiah 42:3):

A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out. In faithfulness he will bring forth justice;

In dealing with the broken, gentleness is paramount. However, we all could use a little gentleness. A kind word goes a long way.

With pent-up anger inside, it is hard to be gentle. Anger is usually a symptom that something is amiss. An unaddressed elephant in the room can grow into a monster. There can be no true harmony without speaking up and voicing our concerns. And without being honest, there is no real intimacy. We do not need to bury simmering anger for long to see it reaching boiling temperatures. Misdirected anger blows up into our face with lots of collateral damage.

Thankfully, there is constructive anger. When we see dog poop on the floor, we better eliminate it, or it will be carried all throughout the house causing a lot of stink. I guess we all know what that means. Constructive anger does the house cleaning. We address what is wrong and thereby eliminate buried grenades. Removing these triggers paves the way to gentleness. We need to be honest – so we can be gentle.