I’m physically feeling better today. I honestly expected to have painful caffeine and sugar withdrawals for a week or so. Thus far, I have had a dull headache that seems to appear at the times of day when I’ve previously consumed large amounts of caffeine, but I’m finding that by eating a piece of fruit or a handful of nuts, it goes away. The emotional and spiritual pain is probably about the same as yesterday though.

Today I walked through some big stuff. I don’t feel free to share all the details, but I had a realization that every single obstacle that exists in my relationship with my oldest daughter is based on some of my mother-wounds that have never been dealt with. Since I lost my Mom more than five years ago, I just have to let those wounds be healed without any real conversations. Maybe that’s for the better though. I can see clearly that my Mom did the very best she could and that she made choices concerning me and my sister with nothing but the best of intentions. Without saying much more on that matter, my prayer is that my relationship with my daughter is about to reach a whole new level.

The other big lesson today came once again from the sermon on the mount. This time it was on loving people.

Matthew 5:43-48 You have heard people say, “Love your neighbors and hate your enemies.” But I tell you to love your enemies and pray for anyone who mistreats you. Then you will be acting like your Father in heaven. He makes the sun rise on both good and bad people. And he sends rain for the ones who do right and for the ones who do wrong. If you love only those people who love you, will God reward you for that? Even tax collectors love their friends. If you greet only your friends, what’s so great about that? Don’t even unbelievers do that? But you must always act like your Father in heaven.

While I take pride (yea, yea, I’m working on the pride thing too) in the fact that I truly deeply love people, I had to come to terms today with the fact that I have a much harder time loving some people than loving other people.

There have been several VERY RECENT occasions for me to pounce on people for not seeing my two little stimmers (autistic blessings) as equal to every other child on the planet.  The minute someone treats one of them differently or denies them any right that a typical child would have, words like “discrimination”, “segregation”, and “isolation” jump to my mind.  I’m not a huge fan of the ACLU, but when those words start running through my head I wish I had a number for their complaints hot-line on speed dial.

Today I had a big realization.  It sucks to admit it, but I’ve displayed all three of those ugly and unacceptable words towards people in the VERY RECENT past.  The sun rises and shines for each and every one of us.  The rain falls for each and every one of us.  Salvation is available for each and every one of us.  His grace is available for each and every one of us.  His love is available for each and every one of us.  The realization of just how hard it is for me to show that kind of love and grace to some people is just painful.  I’m a mess.  I’m glad God doesn’t give up on me because when I think of just how often I fail to act like Him, it’s more than a little humbling.  I need the kind of unfailing grace that ONLY He can give, more than I can probably even grasp.

Tomorrow’s to-do list is going to look a little different than the one from the last three days.  Tomorrow I am challenging myself to greet every person I meet as if they were a close friend.  I’m sure I just opened up an invitation for every nasty person in the DC metro area to cross my path. To them I say, “Bring it, Stringbean!  Show me what you got!”