Friday, May 13, 2011

Mercy

I may have written about the good work of mercy once or twice before; I seem to need its presence in my life more lately. Due to stress, I'm not always at the top of my game. Exactly when I think I've mastered the art of juggling one more ball in the air, another two are thrown my way and I have to reach and stretch until my capacity increases. I suppose we should all be grateful for challenges that make us grow--I only wonder if I'll ever be able to coast in comfort or will I always feel like I'm trying to catch my breath. Time to take a few more things off my plate, to make it easier to focus on whatever it is that goes 'round and 'round in the air.

How to simplify a life that is already devoid of things such as movies, t.v., shopping, and ice cream? Answer email in chunks, don't check it so often. Let the voicemail handle the phone sometimes--especially when the cell phone breaks like mine did last week. I'm into a second week with no cell phone, and with an old broken one that I located in the garage (when it happens work). My daughter will be loaning me her old phone because I'm not willing to renew a contract for bad service in order to get the "deal" on a new phone. What does this have to do with mercy, you say? Everything. I'm not perfect--at keeping up with home, work, friends, or with life. Too much on my plate, as usual. I lost patience at home this week and had to ask forgiveness from my husband. I missed some email messages at work, due to a jammed inbox and a possessed junk mail folder, had to ask for re-sends and apologize for delays. I failed to check voicemail remotely for the broken phone and missed calls from people who are important to me, I'm still begging for mercy on that. And now, at the end of the week trying to stretch but still dropping balls along the way, I ask the Universe for mercy to help me grow into the demands on my life.

I am reminded that when we leave our hearts open to help, it finds us. Of course, the help that arrived this week was from countless volunteers, once again, at work. Mercy also came from kids and husband pitching in extra at home, and from friends giving me a second chance to connect. Some day I will "arrive," to a place where I can see that all this juggling of four-plus jobs at a high school made me the person who I will become. Today, I only wish to continue seeing this evidence of mercy in my life.

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