Mercy

I found this the other day on Pinterest. I quickly read it, and then pinned it to my board.
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Yesterday was a bad day. A very bad day. I saw the day heading in a downward spiral of anger, resentment, frustration and strife. I saw it going there and I could have stopped it, but I didn't. It was like stepping outside of myself and watching the events unfold like a movie. A movie about a destructive tornado that tears thorough some unsuspecting little town leaving its residents lives completely turned upside down.

"Where did that come from?" they quizzically ask each other.

"I don't know, but I am so afraid that it is going to happen again. I hope it doesn't."

Sometimes the worst part of being an adult is that although you are supposed to know better and do better, you still act like a child. Last night after all was calm and I apologized to my boys for acting the perfect part of the lunatic, I was still feeling unsettled. I woke up in the middle of the night and got up out of my warm bed. I went into their rooms and put my hands on their sleeping heads and asked for mercy for their memories. I prayed that they would not remember the bad days. That the good days would all pile up until the deep places in their minds were so filled with good memories that there was no room for the bad ones. I wish that I could take a magic eraser and wipe all traces of the unhappiness that I have caused completely from the minds. But I can't. The only thing that I can do today is do better than yesterday.

Today I will do what matters.