Help Us Remember During this Hectic (yet Blessed) Season

 

Heavenly Father, Help us remember that the jerk who cut us off in traffic last night is a single mother who worked nine hours that day and is rushing home to cook dinner, help with homework, do the laundry and spend a few precious moments with her children...  

...or maybe a married mother of a 4-year-old hurrying to get home because said 4 year old was in the back seat throwing up in a paper bag.

 

Remind us, Lord, that the scary looking bum, begging for money in the same spot every day (who really ought to get a job!) is a slave to addictions that we can only imagine in our worst nightmares.

Help us to remember that the pierced, tattooed, disinterested young man who can't make change correctly is a worried 19-year-old college student, balancing his apprehension over final exams with his fear of not getting his student loans for next semester.

 

Help us to remember that the old couple walking annoyingly slow through the store aisles and blocking our shopping progress are savoring this moment, knowing that, based on the biopsy report she got back last week, this will be the last year that they go shopping together.

A friend of mine, Corey,  posted these statuses on her Facebook page this past week.  She is in my Sunday School class where we have been studying/discussing how we are called to show GRACE - not only during this blessed season, but throughout our lives.  I wrote about this a few weeks ago myself in Grace Filled. 

Thank you, Corey.  You have helped me remember.