Waiting Room Reflections

As I sat quietly in the waiting room of the oncology office at 6 am this morning, passing time playing a couple of games of solitaire, I noticed the room began to fill up with people.

One person seemed to stand out above the rest..

My first reaction was, what a strange lady. She had on a pair of black biker boots. She was wearing a black gypsy looking skirt with purple stripes around the bottom, red embroidered roses with green stems, patches of paisley and a few other colors thrown in and wore a faded blue gene jacket. Her red hair was tossed as if it hadn't been touched in days. She looked worn from the struggles that life seemed to have given her. She seemed a bit flighty and insecure as she tried to make herself comfortable in her chair.

As she drank her coffee and skimmed through a magazine, she glanced up at me. Her eyes were red and watery and sad.

It hit me how my first thought was to judge her appearance, forgetting where I was and why we were all here.

I caught myself praying for forgiveness for my first reaction. Praying for her, not knowing if she was here for her own diagnosis or here with a friend or a family member. I continued praying for my friend who was here with his own fears of the thought of the cancer coming back and prayed for my own fears as well as to what his test might reveal.

All at once it seemed like all the sadness in the world was on my shoulders. I caught myself praying that God would bless the world with a special amount of joy today, just to make life easier for all of us as we struggle.

I learned once again that no one knows the hearts of those around us. No one knows the struggles and pain that they endure. I remembered how easily I seem to forget this and how much better of a person I would be if my first thoughts were filled with compassion to all I meet.

My reflections in the waiting room once again reminded me of the value of life, each and every life. A life lesson that should always have a place in my mind and heart. A lesson that we should all remember, to make us all the person that God intended for us to be.


and the Journey Continues.......

The Hatred of the Heart

We hear the words from those around us
Friends, family, coworkers and strangers
Voicing their opinion with so much passion
Sometimes with so much hate

We hear it on the news
As each side tears the other apart
We read it in our social networks
With no one finding common ground

We express our opinion, our side of things
No matter what the cause
We take each act, each word
And twist it to make our point

We've become an angry people
So quick to criticize and judge
Only hearing what we want to hear
Not willing to compromise

We've closed our hearts to understanding
We shout out words of hate
We've lost the warmth of caring
The compassion, the humanity

Its all about what works for us
What we can use to verify our point of view
We say we accept and understand
We respect the opinion of those around us

But deep inside there is real hatred
One word of disagreement makes the blood boil
We bite our tongues trying to be fair
Not revealing the hatred in our hearts

We hang on to our judgement
We've already made up our mind
We know the truth
Without even hearing the facts

We've become a people of extreme bias
We've lost a part of our humanity
Standing up for our rights
We've closed our mind to what others think

Sure we say we understand
We say the words to show we accept others
But too many times deep inside
We only feel the Hatred of the Heart