Elusive Contentment & Words of Whoa!

If complaints were laden with calories, would you be overweight? If comments that build up a brother or sister -- any person created in God's image burned calories, would you be lean? I'm all for discernment, wisdom, and good judgement, and even critical thinking and solid reasoning. I acknowledge we are all on a journey. Yet I need to work on my responses to events and choices others make. I want to be a more thoughtful and understanding person. So often I may jump to conclusions, criticizing a complete stranger or someone well known without knowing the full story and without stopping to realize this person is of value to God the father and I don't know how God is working in that moment. As Andy Marin, author of Love is an Orientation, wisely shared, "God is at work in a person's life. We do not know when that starts or where it will end." I need to remember this and stay open to God's work hidden or visible to me, and learn to love with my words and deeds. This reflection was prompted by listening to people respond to the ingauguration ceremony and the prayers and the poem and the fashion for the ball. Here we go!