Easy for you, hard for me

What is easy for one person may be very difficult for another person. This has been on my heart over and over this week.

A few examples:

Heights
Writing
Speaking in public

Patience
Keeping your cool in traffic
Getting up early
Large crowds
Housekeeping
Organization

Cheerfulness
Punctuality

Using computers

But go deeper.

Understanding
Empathy
Modesty

Faithfulness
Trusting God
Dealing with screaming children
Church teaching
Letting your children make their own decisions
Being kind to your spouse
Poverty
Letting go of control in situations large and small
Forgiveness

What is easy for you may be more difficult for someone else.

As Christians, we are called to witness to and even challenge one another to grow in holiness, but we are also called to meet people right where they are with no judgment and no condescension. 

I don’t think this means that we should constantly make excuses for other people, or even accept excuses all of the time.
I do think that perhaps we sometimes should lower our expectations of others.
I do think that perhaps we are called to humbly recognize and accept, when appropriate, when another person is offering us something that is much more difficult for them than it would be for us.


We need to pray often for the graces we need in order to discern and follow the promptings of the Holy Spirit, moment by moment, conversation by conversation, challenge by challenge in our lives.

We need to pray that we would learn from the ocean of God’s mercy to be merciful to others.

Another way to think about it: at this particular moment, I’ll bet there is probably someone in each of our lives that we desperately need to understand that something that is easy for them is difficult for us.