Mercy

I have many friends to whom the gift of mercy has been bestowed. The word mercy is defined as: kind or forgiving treatment of someone who could be treated harshly. The could be treated harshly part of the definition is the course of action option when the proverbial buttons have been pushed or the last straw has been placed on a tall heep or someone gets on my/your last nerve. My husband has a saying, I have a lot of patience and very little tolerance, I am learning what this means. I listened to a powerful message yesterday and what stuck is this observation "poisoning relationship with self"~this is the collateral damage that can be done when my need to be right, heard, seen, understood, needed, wanted superimposes itself onto my relating to another. I poison myself, the other and the relationship when I fail to actually relate to the other, connect with that person or those people across from me, beside me, around me. Occupation with self in the presence of others can be an irritant that drives people away...we are all guilty or have been, of some form of self absorbtion, even obsession that has made another so uncomfortable as to cause a retreat. Mercy, it stays, it is a gift of the Spirit, it is the undergirding, the support beam, the pillar that strengthens the structure of relationship when one or the other of the would be relators deviates from connecting and moves into solipsism. The bonding agent of knowing the character and heart of another can increase the mercy quotient and love unseen by the receiver, an invisible holding of the one who has fallen into self indulgence and has forgotten the how to's of relating, is given the gift of mercy, forgiveness for not noticing that two have become just one, just me when I can't see past myself. As I said in the beginning, I know many with this gift of mercy and it is the "Let all that you do be done with Love" that 1 Corinthians 16:14 speaks of, a love that covers all sin and misunderstanding and looks to the grand scheme of things seen and unseen, known and yet to be known...Mercy carries me as a babe in arms. This is dedicated to many this day as they love the ones they are with, and to Paul Byers in particular, he is my one, and I love him ever so.