11.17.23 - 1 Timothy 1:13
What's the mercy you need to give yourself space to grow? How can you name that for yourself today?
I was previously a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and an insolent man. But I was shown mercy…
I am often guilty of practicing empathy, grace, mercy, faith, etc., on a one-way street.
I try to treat the people in my life with as much compassion, respect, and admiration as I can. But do I deserve mercy in spite of the ways I fail those that I love and who rely on me?
It's a struggle to accept that I am not due punishment for wrongdoing when someone shows me mercy. But it is a gift meant to free both the wronged and the wrongdoer.
Mercy is like a pressure valve that releases the flow of power between us.
No matter who was right or wrong, mercy allows us to bury our dead, see the issue from another's perspective, turn the cheek, and return to each other as equals.
Sometimes we don't forgive for the sake of the other person, it's so we can begin to let go and give ourselves the freedom to move forward, to change, to become something/someone different.
What's the mercy you need to give yourself space to grow? How can you name that for yourself today?
--Katelin Champion