Let your gentleness be evident to all" (Philippians 4:5).

I want to keep the peace. I want to be gentle, not confrontational.

Let your past rejection experiences work for you instead of against you by allowing them to help you sense the possible pain behind other people's reactions.

don't always feel like being nice and pleasant, but I can choose to in order to honor God.

Never let loyalty and kindness leave you! Tie them around your neck as a reminder. Write them deep within your heart. Then you will find favor with both God and people, and you will earn a good reputation. (vv. 3 — 4 NLT)

And in that you will find the why. Why did this happen? Because there's someone else in the world who would drown in their own tears for not seeing yours.

Dear Lord, please help me pause and allow the Holy Spirit to intervene when I want to react in ways that don't glorify You. Even when I'm caught off guard, may Your love and patience be the spillover from my heart. In Jesus' name, amen.

I can't expect a perfection in others I'm not even capable of living out myself.

You have been entrusted with the heart of another human being. Whatever else your life's great mission will entail, loving and defending this heart next to you is part of your great quest.

How can a man know he is one when his highest aim is minding his manners?

Many relationships fail for the insistence of treating others as problems to be solved, rather than as hearts to be known and loved.

Knowledge is one thing, virtue is another; good sense is not conscience, refinement is not humility, nor is largeness and justness of view faith. Philosophy, however enlightened, however profound, gives no command over the passions, no influential motives, no vivifying principles. Liberal Education makes not the Christian, not the Catholic, but the gentleman