A post on a post-it note...kind of

I have been gifted a lot of really nice bookmarks over the years, but typically my pages are kept for my next reading with some scrap of paper or note I have written.

I have one of my morning devotions bookmarked with a page torn off of a St. Jude’s notepad with these words written on it:

“Sat – Monday would work – she can make reservation if you would prefer – she doesn’t mind odd hours + will work to make arrangements or you can”

I also have another note, also in my handwriting but different mood with an arrow pointing to the memo above and it says:

“I have no idea what this note means”

I hang on to it in case, some day, I am asked about what time frame would work for some unknown woman’s schedule so I can let her know if we found odd or regular hours for the reservation to whatever event and then we can determine who will be making the arrangements.

Sometimes I wonder how Russ lives with me and doesn’t lose his sanity.

But on a more serious level, I have another page marker (also on a St. Jude’s notepad sheet….what would I do without all the free notepads and address labels?) in a different devotion and I read this one and pray it every morning.

On this paper I have jotted a prayer.

I don’t remember if I wrote this particular prayer, and since I haven’t given any credit to anyone as a quote, I am assuming I did…but then again…I can’t remember why I wrote the other note and if some female friend or relative is sitting by her phone waiting for me to text back with the plan for making reservations…so maybe I did read it somewhere.

If so – many thanks to whoever wrote it originally – it sounds better than what I could write so I must have gotten it somewhere.… and if you know who wrote it, let me know so I can give him/her credit…or make a reservation Saturday – Monday, even if it’s odd hours…

The words I wrote on down are:

“Prayer for us when we are hurt:
God, keep my anger from becoming meaness.
Keep my sorrow from collapsing into self-pity.
Keep my heart soft enough to keep breaking.
Keep my anger turned towards justice, not cruelty.
Remind me that all of this, every bit of it is for love.
Keep me fiercely kind. Amen”

I love that prayer even though it means a lot of surrender each and every day.

Fiercely kind is something that takes guts in this day and age.

I have always been hyper-sensitive; which is great when compassion is needed and well-received, but it means a lot of bumps and bruises when you are out there in the trenches and dealing with people who like to play rough.

It means learning how to put up healthy boundaries without building walls.

It involves a determined effort to let God heal and console when knocked down and then sucking it up and getting back in the game.

It requires an understanding that God wired me to notice things others don’t, not so I can be in the know but so I can be on my knees.

It asks me to be vulnerable enough let my heart get broken, but to never give up on making it available to help others.

It remembers the example of Christ who extended forgiveness to those who didn’t even know to ask for it.

It means feeling alone a lot, and odd, and misunderstood; so that God can work empathy into my interactions with others who seem so different from me, but are really just trying to make it through the stuff of life on planet earth

How about you?

I hope you are doing well at getting up when you are knocked down.

I hope you are developing some healthy boundaries so you can operate well in the gifts and callings God has given you.

I hope your heart is staying soft and your anger is turned to justice and that you are remembering that it is love that covers over a multitude of sin.

God’s love, on the Cross…where Christ forgave us and died for us, who didn’t deserve it one little bit…that kind of love…covers over a multitude of sins and it is available to those who have received His salvation…so that we can be….fiercely kind <3

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