{"id":14551,"date":"2013-09-12T01:00:55","date_gmt":"2013-09-12T06:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/?p=14551"},"modified":"2013-09-09T17:49:34","modified_gmt":"2013-09-09T22:49:34","slug":"tender-mercy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/2013\/09\/12\/tender-mercy\/","title":{"rendered":"Tender Mercy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/SeekingHimLogo.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-13840\" alt=\"SeekingHimLogo\" src=\"http:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/SeekingHimLogo.jpg\" width=\"560\" height=\"280\" srcset=\"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/SeekingHimLogo.jpg 560w, https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/SeekingHimLogo-300x150.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 560px) 100vw, 560px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The other day, one of my precious children was irritable.\u00a0 He didn&#8217;t want to sit down for breakfast.\u00a0 He didn&#8217;t want to be touched.\u00a0 He didn&#8217;t want anyone to talk to him.\u00a0 He didn&#8217;t want to go to the potty.\u00a0 He didn&#8217;t want his Pull-Up changed.\u00a0 He just wanted to be left alone.\u00a0 (I just wanted him to be happy.)<\/p>\n<p>So, I left him alone and just watched him.<\/p>\n<p>Eventually, he began to follow me around. When I decided to sit down, he walked up to me and said, &#8220;I sit.&#8221;\u00a0 I knew what he wanted.\u00a0 He was waiting for me to sit and cross my legs&#8230;.<\/p>\n<p>He had been less than loving to me earlier.\u00a0 He didn&#8217;t want anything to do with me, then.\u00a0 I didn&#8217;t get a &#8220;good morning!&#8221; or even a smile.\u00a0 All I got was an irritated response to everything&#8230;even when I was trying to comfort him!\u00a0 How rude!!\u00a0 Did his behavior deserve my kindness or love?<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">Lord, don&#8217;t hold back your tender mercies from me.<br \/>\nLet your unfailing love and faithfulness always protect me.<br \/>\nPsalm 40:11<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Have you ever had a moment when your behavior was, nicely put, less than stellar?<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Peter did&#8230;when he denied Jesus three times in one night.<\/li>\n<li>Paul did&#8230;when he was zealously busy persecuting Christians.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Yet, God extended mercy, forgiveness, love and kindness to both men.<\/p>\n<p>We need to be careful how we behave when we are in a funk, but we also need to be forgiving of others who treat us poorly\u2014because <strong>they<\/strong> are in a funk. No, it is not your fault they are unhappy, but we don&#8217;t need to take these moments personally. Don&#8217;t hold it against them! We are all <em>imperfect<\/em> human(s).<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">Now, however, it is time to forgive and comfort him.<br \/>\nOtherwise he may be overcome by discouragement.<br \/>\nSo I urge you now to reaffirm your love for him.<br \/>\n2 Corinthians 2:7-8<\/p>\n<p>What happened with the little boy?\u00a0 Not one ounce of any hesitation was present&#8212;I sat and crossed my legs in less than a second and was ready to hold and snuggle him.\u00a0 The thought of denying him his request to be comforted, never came to my mind.<\/p>\n<p>I pray I can be as understanding with adults.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">* * * * *<\/p>\n<p>Lord, thank You for being so merciful.\u00a0 Teach me to extend this same mercy to those around me. Help me to choose to not be offended when others are rude to me, and help me to be kind when I am feeling irritable.\u00a0 I want to love others, even in their less than stellar moments.\u00a0 In Jesus&#8217; name I pray, amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The other day, one of my precious children was irritable.\u00a0 He didn&#8217;t want to sit down for breakfast.\u00a0 He didn&#8217;t want to be touched.\u00a0 He didn&#8217;t want anyone to talk to him.\u00a0 He didn&#8217;t want to go to the potty.\u00a0 He didn&#8217;t want his Pull-Up changed.\u00a0 He just wanted to be left alone.\u00a0 (I just [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":118,"featured_media":13840,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3020],"tags":[3644,3146,249,3367,10,425,3645,680,2666,3643,3174],"class_list":["post-14551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-devotions","tag-2-corinthians-27-and-8","tag-ahmee-bronaugh","tag-compassion","tag-daily-devotions-2","tag-forgiveness","tag-girlfriends-coffee-hour","tag-gods-tender-mercy","tag-mercy","tag-psalm-40","tag-psalm-4011","tag-seeking-him-devotional","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/SeekingHimLogo.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p39pHp-3MH","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/118"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14551"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14551\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14553,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14551\/revisions\/14553"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}