Criticism to Compassion

Today I managed to do something I've never done before - I turned my reaction of judgment into a prayer of compassion. I'm no saint - this was very hard for me to do. But I had been reading chapters from Matthew this past week or two, and something about the passages on judging one another (the mote in our brother's eye vs the beam in our own, etc.), made me very conscious of how often most humans, including me, do this.

Today, I was driving around on errands and I saw something that I disapproved of. I can't even remember whether it was another woman driver or whether it was a woman pedestrian - so it couldn't have been as important as it seemed at the time.

The main thing is that when I caught myself mentally griping and criticizing about her actions, I thought about what I had just done. I quickly said a quick prayer for the Lord to bless her with whatever she might need to deal with life and those around her. I asked that the Lord's will, not mine, be done. I felt so much better leaving it in his hands. What a feeling of relief.

Father, thank you so much for being in charge - I certainly am not as well qualified for the job as you are.