Read My Lips - the blog

From Aunt Net's mailbag

If you are a regular reader, you know I have a loving aunt on AOL who sends me barrages of forwards on occasions. Sometimes I find something worth sharing:

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.

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.

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 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.

Heavenly Father, remind us each day that, of all the gifts you give us, the greatest gift is love. It is not enough to share that love with those we hold dear. Open our hearts not to just those who are close to us, but to all humanity. Let us be slow to judge and quick to forgive, show patience, empathy and love.

Or, if you are not the praying sort, or pray to someone other than a Heavenly Father, just be mindful that the world is full of a lot of different people with different ideas, different ways of doing things, and different lives to lead. Be kind, patient and conscientious with dealing with everyone, because you seldom know everything that might be attributing to their activites at that certain moment. I mean that rude person that you just flipped off in the K-Mart may be a very recently fired Postal Worker who was there to buy three cases of ammunition for that high-powered rifle in his car.

Posted by Tiger at August 11, 2003 01:14 PM