Have you ever come to the end of your patience and simply exploded with rage? I have, and in this Biblical devotional for women, I will share with you how my hot temper got the best of me and how much I was hurt by my own impatience. I’ll also reveal how I examined my ways and changed myself. To understand why I have a bad temper, read my autobiography “Getting to know Anna Szabo.”

The Labor Day 2016

When we run out of our own natural patience, we can reach out for God’s supernatural patience. But I didn’t. Here’s my story. It was Friday before the Labor Day 2016. I commuted for several hours from Decatur to Cumming, GA coming home from work. To be clear: I commuted 100 miles every day to go to work. It was a significant burden on my mental and physical health considering that in just a few months of being married to Michel Szabo, I endured two fall injuries. My typical commute to and from work prior to marrying Michel and moving into the house, where he wanted us to build a family, was only 15 minutes.

Now, I was in a terrible marriage, with two back injuries, enduring unbearable physical pain and indescribable emotional trauma from narcissistic relationship abuse, and feeling suicidally depressed. It was the most difficult season of my life.

My husband had already admitted to cheating on me. He was mainly absent from our marriage. The drama and trauma were too much for me to handle, given the fact that just a few months before, Michel asked me to spend the rest of my life and serve God together, to which I said “I do!” How I wished that Labor Day weekend to undo my “I do…” I felt exhausted by Michel’s abuse and cruelty.

That afternoon was a hot afternoon. I felt tired after work and my hour-long commute. As I pulled into the driveway of our marital residence in Cumming, Michel texted me that he was gone for the weekend. This was my husband who abandoned me right after the wedding while spending my paycheck, not paying the mortgage, cheating on me, and threatening me regularly with violence.

Michel informed me that his plan was to spend the holidays with his friends in the mountains. This was after I hoped we could spend time talking about our marriage and money. You can learn more about the devastating details of Michel’s narcissistic abuse in my essay called “Narcissistic Abuse Examples.” Not only did he abandoned our marriage and me, he literally left me three times with no money for food, though I earned a higher income than he did, which he demanded I deposit into our joint account. I did give him my paycheck, and he wasted it. We needed to talk. But he was gone. Another aspect of his abandonment was my personal safety and security. He left me in a country house alone, with no blinds, giving the code to the door to random men, and I was literally losing my mind dealing with the misery Michel created.

I was left completely alone in the country house, where I just moved to be with my husband, away from everything I knew in the city, away from friends and my coworkers, away from life the way I knew it. To help you picture the situation, I will just say this. Less than four months prior to that afternoon, I walked down the aisle where Michel stood waiting for me to marry him, with tears in his eyes, declaring his love for me to the world and our church family. I became “Missis Szabo” to honor Michel’s request for me to accept his last name.

I loved Michel deeply and looked forward with a hopeful heart to spending the rest of my life with the man I adored… Now, a few months later, I was genuinely wondering how short the rest of my life was going to be considering all Michel’s threats of violence and his intentional strategic cruel plan to manipulate me into suicide.

READ: The Narcissist Has Cruel Intentions

Michel was gone. I came to the end of my patience. I felt angry. I became irate. I was mistreated, disregarded, abandoned, and deceived. Having reached the end of my natural patience, I exploded. I texted Michel a middle finger picture accompanied by a significant amount of profanity. I told Michel in detail where he should go and how exactly to get there. Specifically, I said: F… you, a..ole, go to hell!” What I said was mean. My words were filled with hatred and jealousy. Why? I felt jealous because I wanted to be with my husband but my husband didn’t want to be with me. He had other priorities. I remember our marriage counselors say: “Michel lives a lifestyle of a single man, and you’re married to him. We can’t help you because you’re married to a single man.” It was so painful yet so true. I felt devastated. I just wanted to die.

Yet, I was alive and had to deal with my circumstances. After texting Michel, I cried in my car. I wept. In fact, married to Michel, I wept every day: commuting to work, at lunch, driving back home, on my knees before bed, and while waking up in the morning. I wept and wept and wept. I was sad about who I married but also who I chose to be when I accepted the limits of my natural patience. I saw myself as a child of God but my behavior wasn’t congruent with my identity. My natural patience was limited, but God’s supernatural patience was limitless. Why didn’t I reach out for God’s patience when I ran out of mine?

The Opposite of Patience 

The most interesting thing is that my behavior hurt me the most. To be honest, I felt sad that I’d say something like that to the man I deeply loved and I felt hurt for him but even more than that I was hurt for God whom I let down. God gave me Michel to love but I was pissed at him. My anger wasn’t unreasonable in the natural but as a daughter of God, the supernatural heavenly realm is where I must choose to abide. I acted in that situation humanly but foolishly. The Bible actually describes that kind of hot-tempered behavior in Proverbs.

Whoever is patient has great understanding, but one who is quick-tempered displays folly

Proverbs 14:29

“Folly” stands for foolishness and stupidity.

That’s what the Bible calls the behavior I chose that day. Stupidity is the opposite of patience, whether we explode with anger and rage or jealousy and blame. Since then, I’ve been on a journey of practicing God’s patience. Don’t take me wrong: I am fully human so I’m not perfect. However, things have gotten better since I accepted who I am in Crist. But first, I had to learn about the source of unlimited patience.

My Breakthrough About Patience

You see, we all have blueprints for how everything should be in life. And in addition to our perfect blueprints for life’s circumstances, we also carry around manuals for people. We know exactly how people should be. My manual for Michel had all my expectations clearly defined. But Michel didn’t follow my manual.

I was angry and I withdrew because of hurt.

What about God’s manual for me? 

He clearly defined in the Bible how He wanted me to be. But I wasn’t like that. I violated His standards for my behavior pretty regularly. Was God at the end of His patience with me? Oh no, He’s been so very patient! Why? Because the source of God’s patience is not His expectations (law) but His love (grace). This was the breakthrough I needed. See, I loved Michel but not unconditionally, not like Jesus called us to love, with agape love. I loved Michel with expectations. He failed in many ways, and I lost my patience because its foundation was law, not grace. I decided to learn how to love Michel unconditionally.

The Supernatural Source of Patience

Unconditional love leads to grace. Expectations lead to the end of patience at the end of the person’s performance. I wanted Michel to want to be with me but I wasn’t willing to love Michel is if he chose not to love me and not to be with me. I wanted Michel for myself. I wanted us to be a family, as we planned during our premarital counseling. I wanted us to be one, stand strong, serve God, and have a ministry, as we explained in our wedding video. That’s what I expected.

Those were all good and valid desires but that wasn’t my reality. In reality, my husband cheated on me, abandoned me, betrayed me, and I wasn’t “bearing with him in love.”

Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.

Ephesians 4:2

Patience comes from humbleness. The opposite of humbleness is self-righteousness. I wasn’t humble. I was feeling self-righteous. Earthly self-righteousness leads to arrogance. I was being arrogant in my communications with Michel. I believed that I was right and Michel was wrong. I felt that I was all good and Michel was all bad. Instead of behaviors of the Fruit of Spirit, such as humbleness and patience, I demonstrated behaviors of the Flesh, such as arrogance and hostility. See below the ITCEBO model I developed to demonstrate how fleshly behaviors lead to perishing and abiding in Christ leads to a godly life.

It dawned on me: just like I was betrayed by Michel, so was Jesus betrayed by me that day. By accepting Jesus as my Lord and Savior in 2014, I inherited His Spirit. Jesus set me free from sin and flesh. He asked me to abide in Him and honor His commands, leaning on the Holy Spirit for guidance. And what did Jesus command me to do? To love Michel, to be forgiving, humble, and patient… Did I do it? No.

Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.

Matthew 7:7

Did I reach out to God asking Him for His divine unlimited patience? No. Why? Because I chose self-righteousness over unconditional love, which resulted in me feeling angry and hostile. I had the supernatural source of patience waiting for me to reach out through prayer. But I didn’t. My lord and savior Jesus Christ was waiting for me to choose to abide in Him and show patience to Michel. But I didn’t because I chose the behavior of the flesh. I didn’t reach out for Jesus. I didn’t pray. I didn’t ask. I didn’t receive God’s supernatural patience.

For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do.

Galatians 5:17

From Impatience to Stupidity

I chose “the things I want to do,” aka the flesh. I chose anger instead of patience. I chose to be stupid instead of practicing God’s wisdom. Why did I choose impatience, which resulted in stupidity? I couldn’t handle all the failed expectations. I chose self-righteousness instead of God’s spirit. I wanted Michel to choose me. I wanted him to honor our marriage. I wanted his priorities to switch from those of a single man to those of a married man. I wanted us to build a future together. I wanted to love him and to be loved by him. I wanted Michel to be my husband because he asked me to marry him and we were now married.

Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.

Psalm 27:14

I wasn’t willing to wait for the Lord. I wanted our marriage to work out now. I wanted Michel to be a Godly husband as he promised to be in his vows to me, and I wanted it now. There was only one thing: I forgot all about my own vows to Michel… I vowed to love him for better or worst but I failed. I chose the flesh over God’s spirit, and the result was my foolishness, aka stupidity. 

It happened because I leaned for patience on my natural ability. My natural ability is limited. But God gave me His Spirit of Truth to lean on. God gave me unlimited access to His infinite wisdom and supernatural patience. I just needed to reach out for it. When I gained wisdom and understanding, I realized the true source of supernatural patience – Jesus. God’s grace available to me through the Holy Spirit, which dwells in me, should have been guiding me to stand on God’s promises. But with my free will, I chose to walk in my own power.

Being Patient In Christ

God promised to give us what we ask for, so we need to ask for patience. I’m now reaching out for God’s supernatural patience, which is rooted in grace, every time I come to the end of my own natural patience, which is rooted in expectations. I ask God through prayer, and so far I can confidently attest: God never failed me.

What about you?

What is the source of your patience?

If you choose Jesus, grace, and God’s promises for your daily living, memorize the Biblical affirmation about patience below and practice it often to remind yourself that you are patient in Christ.

I am Patient #52Devotionals

I ask and then I wait for the Lord patiently.
I have patience because I have great understanding.
I am bearing with others humbly and gently.
In my troubles, I'm on God's promises standing