Over the past several months our financial life has been extremely difficult. During the Christmas holidays my parents, siblings and their spouses were extremely generous to us in helping us get through the holidays with some financial assistance for which I am so very grateful. On the other side of that is the exposure, once again, of others "knowing our business" which can be really hard. Why, do you say, should that be hard? It is hard because you are exposed to every one's opinion of what you should or shouldn't do or what is appropriate or inappropriate given your financial difficulty. I am sure, just as I write this, that you know exactly what I am talking about.
Over this past weekend, my two sons went over to my brother and sister-in-law's house to play games with my nephew. When they got into the car when I picked them up, my younger son was very upset by something his Aunt said to him. We are in the process of taking care of a friends dog while she is in rehab and my sons are very excited about it. They were telling their Aunt that we were going to have a dog and she immediately started saying that we had no business getting a dog because we could not afford it and dogs cost alot of money, money that we do not have so we should not get the dog. It burst my sons excitement and made him feel bad.
When he told me about this, my first reaction was one of being "pissed". How dare she judge us on what we can and can not do or have? I was ready to fight! And then I suddenly realized that I was looking in a mirror. How many times have I done the same thing? When things were financially good for us, how many people did I pass judgement on and talk about. How many times was I the "expert" on someone else's down and out experience and verbalized to others what they should have done? How many times did I use someone else's financial probleams as a way to "pump" myself up? I will tell you that I have been soooooo
judgemental of people who found themselves in situations that "none of us smart people" would ever find ourselves in. Now it makes me sick!
It hurts when others are judging our situation because unless you know every square inch of it, you don't really know it. It is so easy to think that we can set our lives up so that nothing bad ever happens to us, it only happens to those who are not smart enough to stop it from happening. Judging others makes compassion for them impossible. It separates us from each other in such a cruel way. I truly want my judgement of others to cease. I want it to be replaced with love and compassion. This is what I ask GOD today to change in me!
If you are wondering how I responded to my son...I told him that human beings judge one another but that it is only GOD's job to judge. I told him to not be offended with what others say and that we are called to love the people even when they say or do something mean. I asked him if he could do that and he said he would try. It is all I want for him, to just try!
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