It's A Trap!

This is not a trap.  This is a daisy from my yard.
And a bug.

There is a trap that I have often fallen into that I am going to avoid from now on!  I have fallen into this trap SO many times, and it not only hurts me, but others as well.  It is the trap of making everything about me.  I believe that Satan really enjoys it when I do that.  If I get too busy looking inward, I miss seeing what is going on around me.  I miss seeing the needs of others and get too busy wallowing in self pity to help anyone!

If I make someone not answering their phone about me, and they don't answer several times, I could decide they really just don't like me, and I am a bother, when it is totally possible that they desperately need help, but can't bring themselves to ask anyone.  It could just be that they are out of town and taking a phone vacation.  Someone not answering their phone is rarely about me, and so it would be foolish to assume it is.

I have had people snap at me before, and it hurt my feelings until a while later when I realized that their snapping at me was really about their stress level, and they needed my compassion, not my hurt.  I have had little children who absolutely refused to get ready for school, and they received my anger until we were both crying and I took the time to listen.  They were nervous and afraid, and needed to be understood and helped, not pushed to hurry so I could drag them to school.

I am determined to quit falling into this trap, and to see others with compassion first, and not wait to get to the compassion until after I've had a pity party myself!

This is not a trap either.  This is Emily.
She is your reward for getting to the bottom of my post :-)