the people in your path

Tessa and I were reading about Snow White last week. There was a picture of all the dwarfs together and she asked me which one was which. I went through and made educated guesses based on their facial expressions.

"That one got up too early," she said about Sleepy.

I was intrigued by this observation. I never thought about the fact that maybe Sleepy wouldn't be sleepy if he had gotten a better night's sleep.

Next she pointed at Sneezy. "He needs allergy medicine."

Poor Sneezy. Imagine how much better his life would be if he could get Claritin clear.

"What's wrong with Grumpy?" I asked.

"Maybe no one gave him a valentine," she said with complete sincerity. I didn't tell her that Valentine's Day was a long time ago and he should be over it by now. But she is probably more on target than me anyway. Most of us hold on to our hurts for a long time.

"Dopey isn't very smart," I said.

"Snow White could teach him," Tessa said.

And finally we got around to Happy. "What's wrong with Happy?" I asked.

"Nothing," Tessa said. "He is smiling, so he is okay."

Good old Happy. After all these years he hasn't once let the grumpy, sneezy, dopey, or sleepy ones change his countenance.

My exchange with Tessa reminded me of some conversations I've had recently. With people struggling to love their enemies. To embrace people who take advantage of another's kindness. To get along with people whose personalities just clash.

And it made me wonder if it would help us be more compassionate toward the ones we don't get along with, the ones who take advantage of us, the ones we'd rather not meet on our path, if we knew why they were Grumpy or Sleepy or Dopey, and if we were committed to remaining Happy regardless of how they treated us.

What if instead of labeling people by their facial expressions we tried to help them, learn from them, accept and encourage and inspire them? What if instead of looking at them as enemies we started looking at them as people God placed in our path for a reason?

EMBRACE THE PEOPLE IN YOUR PATH.

And send more valentines.