We all have those days don’t we, no matter how optimistic we usually are. Tuesdays are my main full day at work and yesterday morning was particularly trying:

• I snoozed in bed for way too long rather than doing the workout I intended on doing
• My dad, who looks after our little one while my husband and I work, had major train delays, so I had to sort our little one out, as well as myself while trying to finish off some work before the team meeting
• I missed the prayers at the beginning of our team meeting
• I was made aware that a controversial snippet from a friend’s podcast made it onto a viral platform on social media which got my back up a little bit

With all the above and the fact that it was a bit gloomy, it’s safe to say I wasn’t in the best mood when I joined our team meeting. But then when I did log on, Sam shared a verse which really resonated with me for the rest of the day:

“And if anyone longs to be wise, ask God for wisdom and he will give it! He won’t see your lack of wisdom as an opportunity to scold you over your failures but he will overwhelm your failures with his generous grace.”

James 1:5 The Passion Translation

This verse almost instantly lifted my mood. Life isn’t perfect and I certainly am not, but it doesn’t matter because God doesn’t deem it important. Instead He ‘overwhelms our failures with…generous grace’. He doesn’t care that you didn’t do that work out, He doesn’t care that you didn’t finish that project on time, or that you’re running late. He blesses us regardless. He looks down with favour upon us. He is always intervening in some way shape or form, whether it’s by a colleague/friend/neighbour saying the right thing at the right time, the sun coming out and smiling down on you, an opportunity landing in your lap or just things finally clicking. He is always there being our biggest cheerleader and guide.

All that being said though, for the rest of the day, I was still engrossed in checking social media, to read the comments and reactions to my friend’s podcast snippet. A lot of the comments were quite harsh making me wonder why she allowed this topic of conversation to come up with such detailed discussion. So to help focus my mind on work, I read the rest of the chapter of James 1, and again God was talking to me:

“My dearest brothers and sisters, take this to heart: Be quick to listen, but slow to speak. And be slow to become angry, for human anger is never a legitimate tool to promote God’s righteous purpose.”

James 1:19-20 The Passion Translation

Much of our anger and wrath comes from being self-centered and not others-centered, therefore I shouldn’t have really been annoyed with my friend for going into so much detail on such a public platform, which is definitely not something I would do. Instead, I should have taken a breath and spoken to her about it in order to understand it from her point of view. We may still disagree about it, after all we are totally different people, but at least I’d be a bit more understanding and less, dare I say it, judgemental. So that’s exactly what I intend to do the next time we catch up.

Why am I telling you all of this? Well just because I wanted to remind you that we are all just human and sometimes we can’t really help how we feel or react to certain situations, and sometimes it takes a while for us to work through the emotions and be a bit more pragmatic. But that’s absolutely fine. God knows exactly who we are and loves us regardless of our flaws. However, we should, when we can, try and be as graceful as He is, to both ourselves and to others. Even if it does mean we need to take a few deep breaths or revisit The Word, before we feel able to…