Life is filled with disappointments. The more our hearts age, the more we know this to be true. As a child, everything is new and fresh. The world makes a big deal of you starting out. But somewhere along the way, it seems to stop caring. The applause dwindles down as your accomplishments become common place. People get used to seeing you walk around on your little toddler legs.
In the first year of baseball, everybody gets a trophy, even the kids wearing baseball gloves on their heads to keep the sun off them. But later on, the trophy comes only when you compete and win. The first few times on the honor roll, it is a remarkable feat. But eventually this achievement becomes less celebrated, and transitions into a regular expectation. Meanwhile, poor grades become less tolerated because history has been proven that you can do better.
In the journey to adulthood, you were undoubtedly let down by countless people – especially when you started dating! Many people do not even know they are letting you down. Have mercy and forgive them. Others will know and won’t seem to care. Have mercy and forgive them also. Either way should lead to the same result, forgiveness. People have strong tendencies to not to see things from your perspective. Nor will they think with your brain. That’s because they have their own to see and think with, which again, means they aren’t using yours.
When you stop to think about it, much of what you are thinking about is the result of the data your senses have gathered and brought to the forefront of your mind. Maybe there is a chance if someone else was given that same data, they’d possibly arrive at the same conclusion as you did. Heck, they might even agree with you, if that were a thing. They might understand exactly why you are feeling the way you are. The trouble is, they don’t have access to that information the way you do. To make matters worse, they only have access to what their own senses are telling them. Even though, in your mind, they may have proven convincingly they are a terrible person, extend grace to them anyway. You never know how one day, you too, will need a healthy dose of grace!