Judgment calls & lessons learned...

We must make judgment calls almost daily. I believe there is a difference between those things and being judgmental of others. I'm not sure why, but this has been on my mind lately, so I thought I'd share an experience I had almost 20 years ago. It is a lesson I learned then, and keep re-learning. Why do I have to keep re-learning this lesson after such a powerful lesson was taught to me so long ago? I suppose it's not so much re-learning it, as it is continually having opportunities to be reminded of the lesson learned...I am often thankful for this experience I am going to share. I have only shared this with a handful of people over the years...partly because I am embarrassed by it, partly because I am far from perfect at this virtue and don't want to sound like I think I am, but mostly because it has had such a profound impact on me that I have kept it close to me personally as a constant reminder. To this day I feel some shame...but I think that is a good thing...

When I was 18 I went to Boston to work as a nanny. One night I went to a fireside with the mother of the family I worked for, and we sat in the back section in the gym. I had been in Boston for a couple of months and I was struggling with finding my own way. I was loving learning more about the gospel, but I was having a hard time with self esteem and being happy on my own...without familiar friends or family around. I was not in the best of moods the night of the fireside. As we got up to leave, my employer wanted to make her way to the front of the chapel to talk to someone, so I followed. I could see way up ahead a girl with long, straight blond hair, and was wishing I had that hair. Dumb, I know now, but when you're 18... So she turned around and the other side of her hair was shaved off. For those of you who lived in this era, that was the cool thing at the time. Shave a portion of the side or underneath your hair. So of course my thought was something like "Oh, she thinks she's cool. That is so lame. And of course eveyone is fawning over her...probably to make her feel excepted since she's a bit on the wilder side". Nice, huh? I am not at all proud of these thoughts. As we got up there my employer gave her a big hug and I just stood there probably scowling, because I know I wanted to just leave. Well, here's the lesson part: A woman approached the girl and asked how she was feeling, and I soon found out by listening in that the girl had cancer. She had had an operation in which her head was opened up. It was then that I noticed the huge scar running from the front of her ear to the back of her head. I wanted to crawl into a hole and die of shame! I was go glad noone could read my thoughts, but what I felt even more was shame and embarrasment that Heavenly Father knew what my attitude was and I wanted to get home and beg for forgivness! So I did. We never know peoples circumstances, currently or from thier history. There have been so many instances since this one that I have caught myself thinking "Okay, I don't know all of the situation...", and it is times like these that I am again thankful for a lesson learned. Even if it was learned the hard way. I believe there are very few situations in which once we know the entire "story" would we place the same judgment on that person or situation. I often think of the scripture that says, "With what ye judge, ye shall be judged" (paraphrazing if course). I don't claim to understand the full meaning of that, but it is enough to make me think. I hope I continue to remember that lesson taught to me so long ago, and I hope to learn equally well the other virtues that I need to work on.