This week for Spiritual Journey Thursday, we are writing about Bobbie's one little word for 2016:
It's easy for me to show mercy toward others, but so much harder for me to be merciful toward myself. I think that's true for most people. We can be pretty hard on ourselves. We tend to hold ourselves to impossibly high expectations, and berate our shortcomings, but as I grow older, I'm learning to treat myself a little kinder, a little gentler, and with a little more tolerance and mercy.
For example, my goal for each day of April is to form and revise one poem for my WIP. I was keeping up with that goal UNTIL today. I only revised three lines instead of an entire poem. I just didn't have much time to write today. We are at the end of the term, and I'm swamped with school work. I'm also trying to finish crocheting a blanket for my niece's baby shower this weekend along with all the nightly household chores.
Instead of beating myself up (like I usually do), I'm patting myself on the back for squeezing in time to work on those three lines. I would like to have revised more, but I did what I could. I can't say that I've become my own best friend yet. At least I'm making progress and I'm okay with that.
Thank you for honoring my OLW with your post, working in that word in a way--given all your priorities and time constraints--that was merciful to yourself. I love your photo-poem; it makes your merciful-to-self message more memorable. "Love your neighbor as yourself." Mercy is the highest, more generous form of love, don't you think? ..."[Be merciful]to your neighbor as [you are merciful to] yourself." Thank you for reminding and modeling that before we can be merciful to others, we have to be merciful to ourselves. Thank you, and may God's mercy encompass and empower us all to be merciful to ourselves so that we can give His Mercy away to others in our lives!
ReplyDeleteI like the angle of mercy that you explore, Linda. As I was thinking about mercy / merciful the thought of extending mercy to myself never occurred to me. I'm going to try to do a better job of that (maybe I'll even like myself more as a result :)
ReplyDeleteWe can be hard on ourselves, for sure. Being merciful toward our own shortcomings is important. Celebrating small victories is important. Making progress is important! :-)
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