All things considered......

Good Evening everyone. I'm so happy to have you here checking out this post. Once again you're very welcome. Pour yourself a cool drink of your choosing and enjoy.
I've started and restarted this post a couple of times. The reason is, I'm trying to figure out the best way to say what is on my heart and mind. We are, it seems, prone to make decisions about the people that come into and through our lives. Some of these folks make decisions and choices that are just plain terrible. It's not those choices I'm talking about. I'm talking about those choices and decisions that could have been better and at the same time, could have been much worse. Many of us (probably all of us, but I'm trying to be gracious here) make up our minds about those choices one way or the other. We look at the person and wonder, sometimes out loud, "how in the world could he/she have made that choice, or why in the world would he/she do something that obviously wrong"? I've been guilty of doing that. Speaking for myself, I suppose mine could be labeled as arrogance, being judgmental, and the list of labels could go on. At this point I'm going to make an educated guess that those labels I've just given myself could apply equally to most other people. The thing that made this really hit home for me is, as I was driving in Birmingham a couple of days ago I exited the freeway I was on. At the bottom of the off ramp was a lone figure standing and holding a sign. This person was dressed in very worn clothing, though the best I could tell the clothes were clean. As I got close enough to see more clearly I realized that the lone figure was a lady. She seemed to be in her thirties. Her sign read, "I'm homeless. Please help if you can". I don't know whether or not she was being truthful or not in her endeavor to obtain some money. I do know this however! She is a person created by a loving God. That same God loves her equally as much as He does anyone on the planet, past, present or future. It occurred to me then that I would never know or understand what led her to that street corner holding a sign. I wondered what kind of homelife she'd had growing up? What was her childhood like, and what was her adolescence like. What were the life experiences that had left, at best, memories and at worst, scars. How would the choices and decisions been different had she had a healthy upbringing. ( I'm assuming here that she didn't ) I knew at that moment that for me to make an assessment of her current lifestyle was arrogant and judgmental. The fact is, in any number of people I see and interact with everyday, I do not know what's in their past that cause them to act and react the way they do. I do not know why they make the choices they make. Sometime I smugly make the assumption that I would never do that, or that I would make a better choice. The fact is, all things considered, I would probably make the same if not worse choice, if I'd walked the very same road taken by that person. You see, we can never claim to have taken the same road that someone else has taken. We don't have the same experiences in life, and that alone negates our having taken the very same road. Something I remind myself of from time to time. "There, but for the Grace of God, goes I"! Having said all of that, let me adknowledge that I've made my full share of bad choices and bad decisions, and I'll go out on a limb here, so has everyone else. The moral of this post is this. As you walk through your day from now on, work on being as gracious as you can be. Remember as you go through your day that when you make a less than good choice someone might be saying, "I could have made a better decision". So, when tempted to make a condescending comment, or even have a condescending thought about someone, stop and pause, then know that they may have just made the best choice they could have based on what they've been taught in life. In short, try extending grace to them. ..........And so it goes..........