Monday Morning Commute

It was a Monday morning.

On THAT day 9 years ago.

The day that changed my life forever.

Who I was.

How I thought.

What I believed.

Snow was falling gently.

Daylight hindered by the darkness that still blanketed the city.

It was a typical Monday commute.  For most.

People going to work.

Dropping their kids off at school.

Stopping at Starbucks to get their double nonfat cappuccino.

Complaining about the weather and the driver in front of them.

Preparing their minds for their staff meeting.  The week ahead of them.  Travel plans.  Their daughters recital.  Their sons football game.  LIFE!

I sat at a stop light.  I still remember it all too well.

And I thought ‘The person in the car next to me has NO IDEA that my husband died an hour ago!’.  ‘They have NO IDEA that my entire world just exploded into tiny little pieces of uncertainty, fear, sadness.

Life moved on.  Forward motion.  World still spinning.  Why did the world not stop moving for just a moment?  Because MINE did! 

For that moment, TIME STOOD STILL……..for me anyway. 

The lesson in that moment was to never underestimate the power of circumstance.

We never know what someone else is really going through.

We judge someone so quickly for their unfavorable mood, their impatience in a moment.

We don’t know the battle that exists in their hearts.  In their lives.  In that time & place.

The news they just received.

The final goodbye that was just said.

The fight they just had with their teenager.

The diagnosis they just received from their doctor.

The funeral they just came from.

The divorce papers they just signed.

We Don’t Know!!

The lesson in that moment was to never underestimate the power of mercy.

The power that grace can provide in a moment of sadness & uncertainty.

So I will give it when I can.  I will lend it where it is needed.  Because I have been in that Monday morning commute.  I have been there.