Friday Morning Inspiration (for Help Somebody Ministries)

I was having a conversation with a friend recently, really I was complaining about someone else when my friend asked, "I ever tell you the story about the man on the bus?" I hadn't heard the story and she began to tell me. And it went a little something like this...

There was a man riding a crowded bus with his three small children. The man stared blankly out the window as his children made their way up and down the bus screaming and playing and distrubing the other passengers. The passengers were getting furious when finally someone asked the man why he was letting his children behave so badly on the bus. The man sadly looked up and said "I'm so sorry. We just left the hospital and I just found out that their mother just died. I don't know what I'm going to do or how I'm going to tell them." Hearing this, the passengers were less botherd by the children and were sympathetic with the man. They began to play with the children and offer them things to play with.

What the story is trying to tell us is that sometimes when we have just a small piece of someone else's perspective we can see a bothersome situation much differently. Today I am encouraged to know that I don't know the whole story, I only know my side of it. There is always some small piece missing, the presence of which would make the difference in the story.