Thursday Thoughts

So I usually don't like to "air my dirty laundry", but I feel like I need to share a lesson that I learned a few weeks ago, and therefore I will have to.

My sweet brother has started a food ministry at his church. He is calling it Ekklesia Acres. (I will post more about it later). He is growing a huge garden behind their church building and will be donating the food to the Rescue Mission. He sometimes gets volunteer groups together to go and serve meals to the people who are in recovery there and the homeless who come through. He has also been asked to teach a nutrition class there. (On a side note: I just want to mention how proud I am of my brother for all the great work that he is doing in helping others. Love you Bubber.)

Anyway, I decided to go with him and about 9 other people one night a few weeks ago to help prepare and serve a meal. I had never done anything like this before and was excited for the opportunity to do something good. (I am not tooting my own horn, I just want to share a lesson I learned that night.) I prayed on my way to the Rescue Mission that night that God would "break my heart" and teach me a lesson through this experience. Boy, did He ever...but it was not in the way that I expected. I thought that I would go and see all the homeless people and be moved with compassion and feel more grateful for the blessings I have...blah, blah, blah...all of that happened...but the main lesson I learned was one about my own self-righteousness.

I was at the very end of the serving line putting salad into bowls. There were at least 300 people who came through the line that night (in shifts, not all at once.) Of course there were some who had obviously been drinking or were high, etc. Many of them had red, blood-shot eyes, and I (being the self-righteous person that I am sometimes) assumed that anyone with red eyes was on something. There was one particular man who's eyes still haunt me. They were just completely solid red and I felt like he was staring at me. I would look up at him and then look away very quickly, because I felt uncomfortable. But there was something else about him...he just looked so sad and lost and alone. So I looked back up at him several times, but instead of smiling at him or saying something kind to him, I just looked away very quickly each time...I'm sure he could tell that I was uncomfortable.

Anyway, when I got home, I was completely exhausted, not just from serving food, but I was already tired from a lot of work that we'd been doing around the house, and we were getting ready for company to come in the next day, and I came home to find my husband asleep on the couch. Anyone who knows my husband knows that he is a very hard worker. He works all day 5 days a week, whether he's tired, sick, etc., he always goes to work, then comes home and either works out in the garden or works on some monumental project for our house (i.e. the french door), so, he has every right to be tired and to want to take a nap. He had also been watching the baby that night so I could go to the RM.

Well that night, I felt that he didn't have the right to be tired. I mean, after all, I had been serving food to poor people for the past 3 and 1/2 hours! (There's that self-righteousness kicking in again.) I'm the one who's tired! And there were still so many things that needed to be done to get ready for our company! How dare he be sleeping on the couch? Then, he decided he was going to BED! The audacity! So I made sure that he knew I wasn't happy, and made sure that he couldn't go to sleep. And, well, he got up, but he was not a happy camper, and I don't blame him one bit. So of course, some intense fellowship insued. After a few tears, a broken helicopter, and some hurt feelings, I finally realized what I had done. I let my own self-righteousness and "Martha" attitude cause me to treat my own husband badly.

Once I realized that I was the one who was sinning, I became very emotional. How could I go to the Rescue Mission, and act like I'm such a good person, and then come home and be so hateful to my own huband? How could I be so self-righteous?? I began to sob, and asked God and my husband to forgive me for acting that way. Then I went upstairs and looked at myself in the mirror. When I saw it, I finally realized what God was trying to teach me. When I looked in the mirror, my eyes were completely blood-shot. From crying. They looked exactly like the man's eyes who came through the line that night. The man who I assumed was on drugs.

I don't know that man's name, and I don't know his story either. For all I know, he could've been layed off from his job, and just lost his wife and children in a car accident. I don't know what he's been through, and instead of showing him the kindness and compassion that Jesus would have, I judged him, because his eyes were red.

• "Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgement." (Jn. 7:24)
  


• "There is one Lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy. Who are you to judge another?" (James 4:12)
  


• "Mercy triumphs over judgement." (James 2:13b)
  


• "Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice. And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you." (Eph. 4:31-32)
  

Again, sorry for "airing my dirty laundry", but I felt that the lesson needed to be shared. Hopefully, you can gain something from it too.