Note: On Fridays, you can find me at Your Daily Tripod, owned by my friend TonyD. A longer version of the post below appears there.
A hot summer night at an out-of-the-way Italian restaurant. Good food. Good wine. A friend and I are catching up on our lives and what we’re reading. I mention I’ve come across something recently that resonated with me about being gentle with oneself while working on bad behaviors learned decades earlier.
“Like what?” she asks.
I breathe in. “Well, I’m impatient. I’m blunt. And I can be judgmental.”
She reaches her hands across the table. “I know all these things about you,” she says, no pity or protestation in her voice.” I still love you.”
Talk about a moment close to Christ. It might as well have been him speaking to me. In fact, maybe it was.
“Follow me,” Jesus said to Matthew the tax collector. He didn’t say, “Give up your profession, then follow me.” He didn’t say, “Get your heart and soul in order, then follow me.” He simply said, “Follow me.”
And as we come to terms with the profound truth that God wants us today, flawed as we are, perhaps it becomes easier to work on those less than attractive traits we all have… and to accept our friends as they work on theirs.
This reflects your earlier blog about loving someone not in spite of, but even, because of. Those words have stuck with me and this is a powerful reminder. They’ve made me think about people I care about, and myself, differently, giving us all a bit more space to let God love us. Thanks.