I’m learning to welcome people with arms wide open. I still have a long way to go, but I’m learning little by little to accept and enjoy each person just as she is. She is a work in progress. She isn’t perfect. I don’t have to judge or label or categorize. I can see her faults and flaws and failures with compassion. I can imagine her whole. I can give her a break.
A few nights ago, in the middle of the night, I lay listening to a litany of failures and mess-ups and should-haves. All of a sudden, I realized that I would never talk to anybody else the way I was night-talking to myself. So I stopped. I decided to welcome myself with arms wide open. I said, “It’s okay. You’re a work in progress. You can try again tomorrow.” I gave myself a break. I went back to sleep, and I woke up glad.
“He accepts them as they are, and then gently turns them once again in the direction he wants them to go. . . .” Br. David Vryhoff (describing the way God treats us)
“By the grace of God I am what I am. . . .” 1 Corinthians 15:10