Spirit of Perverseness - to me it is sort of like revenge. Doing or saying something to someone you know is morally wrong, but you do it anyway because, at the time it feels good.
Proverbs 15:4 says "a gentle tongue is a tree of life; but perverseness in it breaks the spirit.
There were several times I said or did things to others that I thought were payback and the other person deserved it. The one that sticks out in my mind most is when I was in 9th grade. My mom and I never saw eye-to-eye about anything. We were always arguing. I was the oldest of 3 kids and thought I knew everything. I wanted to date a boy in the 12th grade. Three years older than me. She did not approve because of his age and his family background. But, finally allowed him to come to our house some. I, like all teenage girls thought I was in love and could not live without this boy. She got a little more lenient and I wanted more and more privileges. When she said I could not car date, he gave up and found someone else. Of course I hated her. I did not have the relationship with my mom that allowed me to feel like I could confide in her about personal things. I wrote a lot of my feelings in a diary, which she found and read. I included how much I hated her. It really hurt her feelings. But, at the time I did not care how she felt. I was just mad that I didn't get my way. After that I destroyed the diary. We never had that close mother-daughter relationship. I married very young and my husband often jokes that it was my way of getting out of the house and making my own decisions. Every teenager at some time in their life says, "I can't wait until I'm eighteen and can be my own boss. I guess I took it literally. Since then I have matured alot and have three kids of my own. I have seen them go through problems with girls and dating. I can understand that she was trying to protect me from making a mistake with older boys. Mom and I are still not close enough that I confide in her about personal things, but we do get along now. I never did really hate her, I guess it was just a teenage thing.
At the time I thought I was justified in feeling the way I did about my mom. Now I see how silly I was and that I would never speak or treat my mom like that now.
When she read the diary and knew how I felt. It was sort of like, that's what you get for treating me that way.
I don't think people are bad or evil when the spirit of perverseness comes over them. I think it is just human nature to want revenge or to make someone who has hurt you, hurt just as much.
But, I would never think of killing an animal or a person, not matter what they did.
A bug or a mouse, maybe.
I know how it is to hurt your mom by things you write. When I was young I loved to write short stories. (Wish I had them now, might have made a few bucks off them!) One day my mother read one that I had truly made up about a girl who hated her mother and she wished she could live with her father away from her. The girl’s life was totally different than mine but my mother took it to heart.
ReplyDeleteAs an adult you do mature and hope that you will be different with your children. I bet you try to strive to keep a better relationship with your children. I bet your mother hoped for the same things and never thought in her wildest dreams when you were little that your relationship would turn out the way it has. As a mother now you can only imagine the devastation she must feel that her little girl that once looked up to her and adored her has now become so different that she dreamed. Imagine what you would feel if your children would turn on you for something you were just trying to protect them from.
I am not trying to judge but I just have that fear in my own children that no matter what I do I can never guarantee they will love me as much as I want them too. It’s hard being a mom.