Polite inclusion is the gateway drug to Mercy.~Anne Lamott (From Hallelujah Anyway)

I stood at the edge of the playground, its vast blacktop like another continent. I was eight years old and had started a new school. I had no friends. No familiarity. That first week of school, I wistfully looked out across the expanse at girls jump roping or hopscotching on numbered rectangles. Boys running and laughing amidst a game of dodge ball. I ached to belong.

This week a good friend told me his spouse had let him down. Excluded him. There is almost nothing more emotionally painful.

I'm not sure how one manages the hurt of exclusion. As a child, I wasn't brave enough, or perhaps didn't have the social skills that would help me approach children I didn't know. But I did know to pray. "Please God, help me find a friend." Before the first week of school was over, a girl in an orange dress with yellow polka-dots approached me. She wore glasses just like me. "Wanna play tether ball with me?" 

Even though at eight I didn't know how to express the easing of the ache, that polite inclusion was my gateway into God's mercy.

May we seek to include others, extend them God's mercy. Assuage the ache to belong.