Anger

Yesterday at work, I got cussed out by a patient's mother on the phone an hour after arriving to work. She'd never met me, seen me, or spoken to me. The only experience she'd ever had in labor was her own was having her own children. After she told me that we, UNC Hospital staff, didn't know what we were doing (despite delivering over 300 babies a month), she hung up, swearing all the way.

I was shocked. No one had ever spoken to me that way, ever ever. More than shocked, I was angry. And not just angry, but mad. Like, I wanted to smack her, hard, twice. How dare she talk to anyone that way? I felt slightly abused and assaulted, and I knew that if she acted like that to my face, we'd have a problem on our hands.

Thinking ahead to that potential problem, I told my charge nurse and our unit clerk that if this lady came to the unit, she should not be allowed in. Our clerk announced with a grin, "Girl, I LOVE calling security!" I knew she would.

We didn't have to call security, and everything ended up fine, but it made me think about my own response to this situation. Did I have a right to be angry? Given the chance, should I have said anything to this woman about her actions and words? What does it mean to turn the other cheek and does that apply here? What would Jesus have done? He probably would have said something deep and wise--something I could never come up with spur of the moment. He's way smarter than me, and quicker.

I still don't have an answer to the question, really...I don't know what the "Christian" response is in situations like these. Thankfully I did not have the chance to respond yesterday in my anger because it would have been decidedly un-Christian. Now I have time to process, time to pray, and figure out what to do next time. Maybe there won't be a next time, but probably not.