Control in the heat - by Elizabeth Reynolds

Today at school, a teacher had brought in a student to remove her from the playground for a while because she had been kicking over some chairs. I was just passing through and I asked her what she was doing there. She explained that she was just so angry and frustrated and couldn't control herself.
She went on to explain why she got so angry and it was because while she and some others were playing netball in the yard, a boy called her out as being an obstruction, when she did not believe it was an obstruction. Now, he doesn't even play netball, and this girl does play netball so of course she knows it was not an obstruction but the boy would not let her keep playing.... I can tell you're getting angry just reading this at the sheer audacity of this boy and the total unfairness of the situation. This girl had every right to...
(Sorry - excuse my sarcasm...)
To us, this seems like such a small problem, right? But this poor girl was very upset. And what's more, she got herself into a state worrying what her consequence was going to be now that she was in trouble with the teachers.
As I passed through, I got into a conversation with her. "I just couldn't control myself," is all she kept saying.... As though this was a justified excuse for kicking over chairs.
I went on to empathise with her and confided that I sometimes want to throw and hit things when I get angry... but there's always a consequence. We might lose our privileges, we might hurt someone, we might have to pay for damage to a wall, we might lose some play time. We discussed ideas of different things she could have done instead of kicking the chairs...
But what she couldn't get past was: "I just couldn't control myself."
And no matter how much I empathised with her (because, believe me, I know just the feeling), it came down to me having to say, "You know what? You can control yourself. But it's not going to be easy."
This was a lesson for me. Much easier said than done. Can you agree? Or is it just me that's still just a big kid inside? One of the fruits of the Holy Spirit is self-control. It sounds easy. But in the heat of the moment, when you've been wronged, when things are unfair, when justice isn't being done, self-control can easily go out the window.
When I think of self-control, I think of 'fruit-of-the-spirit' and when I think of fruit-of-the-spirit, I think of Psalm 1...
Blessed is the one...
whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night.
That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither — whatever they do prospers.

Be that tree, strong and firm in the heat of the moment, planted by streams of water, and that stream of water is living water, from the Holy Spirit.