Remember eating lunch in the cafeteria at school? I'm not sure if you're school was just like mine...but most of the time kids were in one of three groups when it came to eating. You had the kids who's moms packed their lunches. As an equally large part of the class you had the kids that turned in envelopes to pay for their lunches and they were in the 'tray' line rather than the 'bucket' line. It took me years to realize that there was a third group. There was a group of kids who were listed on a notebook who passed through the line to get a tray without turning their envelope in first. They were the kids that were on a limited income. Kids that their families couldn't afford to pay for the school lunches and would get free lunches through the school. Kids that were labeled as poor. Kids I saw as poor, dirty, and unfortunate. What a cruel judgement on my part.
You can imagine my reaction years later when I found out that we were offered those free meals every year. You can imagine my reaction when I learned the only, ONLY reason we didn't get those meals is because my dad declined them and we pinched every penny to afford to pack our own lunches.
Remember those kids who said things about being at their moms house for a week or heading to their dads house. I remember looking lost at kids referring to someone picking them up as a mom's boyfriend, or a step parent. In my mind I felt sorry for them and wondered why their family was so broken. I cringed every single time I introduced someone to my moms boyfriend. Every time I mentioned mom dating and the thought of a step parent. Was I now 'that' kid yet again?
The truth is I wasn't THAT kid.
The truth is that kid wasn't THAT kid.
How wrong I judged. How wrong I labeled certain people.
I don't beat myself up over this, not in the least bit. I was a kid. I'm certainly not proud of it and I've laughed over the fact that we were the poor family and I had no idea (that's seriously good parenting on mom and dads behalf). The problem is when as an adult we make the same labels, the same judgments. We see an action that someone is doing and we label it.
Disobedient.
Dirty.
Poor.
Depressed.
Slutty.
Bad.
Cocky.
Stuck up.
Boy crazy.
While working in 180 (the youth group in our church) these labels become more evident. The more I fall in love with these students the more these labels upset me. Seeing people expect a 15 year old to act like an adult and when they don't: label em. Watching others see kids make mistakes and stand back shaking their head: judge them.
Acts 10:15 says that what God hath cleansed, that call not thou common. Verse 28 ends with 'but God hath shewed me that I should not call any man common or unclean.'
Rather than judge- why no just love em? It's the hardest thing to do. Love the unlovely. It's amazing how much strength God will give you if you ask for it and just how much love He'll fill your heart with if you try. Try not to figure out what's wrong with someone, but love, wholly & unconditionally without trying to solve problems.
Try teaching them. Acts 10:42 says 'And he commanded us to preach unto the people, and to testify that it is he which was ordained of God to be the Judge of quick and dead.'
Thankfully, it's not our job to judge.
Rather, learn to love. Learn to hurt for the unloved.
Replace slutty with hurt.
Stuck up or cocky as protecting themselves.
Boy crazy as searching for significance.
Poor or Dirty with neglected.
Depressed with lonely.
No comments:
Post a Comment