Mercy is compassion for failure—others' failures and your own. Everyone fails. Everyone deserves mercy.
Justice without mercy is cruelty. Mercy without justice is weakness. Balance them.
To show mercy is to acknowledge that you too could have failed, given different circumstances.
Mercy interrupts the cycle of harm. Someone must absorb the pain without passing it on.
Self-mercy is not self-indulgence. It is honest acknowledgment of human limitation combined with commitment to grow.
The merciful world is the world that can heal. Without mercy, wounds compound endlessly.
I try to respond with mercy to errors, to misunderstandings, to hostility. Mercy is my default when possible.
You can be merciful and still have boundaries. Mercy is not permission for continued harm.
Extend mercy outward like ripples. One act of mercy enables another. The pattern spreads.