Last month I was on a flight home from a long trip. I was tired, homesick, and worried about my car starting at my minus 25-degree destination. At least, I thought, I have the row to myself.
Just minutes ahead of the door closing, a tall, dishevelled man entered the plane. My muttering of "please, no" was completely ineffective, as the gentleman plopped down next to me. And plopped was the proper term, complete with a lot of interfering in my personal space.
My row mate turned out to also be an armrest hog, and that's a pet peeve of mine. We weren't even to 10,000 feet when I started casting my aspersions on him and what he was like.
About five minutes later, I looked down to see if I could do anything about the armrest situation when I noticed his wrist. It was all scarred from being aggressively torn up. It was the ugliest scar I'd ever seen on a human being.
The poor soul sharing my row had felt his life was so worthless that he tried, very aggressively I might add, to take himself out. Why did he feel that way? What could have been so terrible? How awful his situation must have been.
I saw him in a whole new light. He was not a distraction. He was one of God's children and had suffered greatly. My heart ached for him, and what he had to endure.
We have no clue what others have been through. Instead of thinking the worst of those that we encounter, how about trying to see them as flawed and hurting humans, each with their own cross. Some big, some small.
And some completely unbearable.
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