Judgey Judgement

I know. Judgey is not actually a word. You know what I mean though right?

People tend to be Judgemental. We judge people when we learn about a  choice or a decision they made that has absolutely nothing to do with us. We say things like ” Why would they do that? They should have done this instead.” Judgey Judgey!

Seriously? It has no bearing on us at all but we feel the need to judge it up!

What really gets me is how we are quick to judge people based on their appearance.

By now, if you have been following my story, you’ve seen pictures of Billy.

He had tattoos, piercings and stretched ears that he wore gauges in and he smoked.

Some of that was just a stage he was going through, other things were just how would express himself and what meant something to him. Smoking? I did in my 20’s but I quit cold turkey, I didn’t like it so I was done. I’m pretty sure Billy would have gotten to that point if he had been given the chance to keep having birthday’s and keep growing and changing…

People judged him all the time.  Before I list his good qualities,there was a time in his life that he was very selfish. He had a hard time seeing how his choices affected others. Billy was starting to realize these things. I knew he would, it just took him a little longer than others. Some people never get past me, myself and I. By the time Billy was killed, he had the kindest heart, he helped people, when he saw a need he tried to do what he could.

Jami looked up to his big brother.  Jami started smoking. I tell Jami ” I love you and I love your heart and your lungs too. Billy is not smoking anymore and he really wants you to quit!” Judging? No loving.

Jami also got piercings in the same areas as Billy. He has tattoos but some are his own to express himself and tell his own story and some of his tattoos are what Billy had and Jami got the same ones in honor of his brother.

Today something very upsetting happened to Jami. He recently moved to Massachusetts for his Job. He works outside a lot and meets people of all ages, races and religions every day.

Tonight Jami called me very upset and needed me to calm him down because someone asked him why he smoked and had piercings. Immediately Jami went into defense mode and was started telling the 50 something year old man how Billy was murdered and he witnessed it and due to the stress of that, he smokes and his piercings are the ones his Brother had so he got them too in his memory.

The man proceeded to tell Jami that Billy was probably murdered because he smoked and had piercings and wasn’t following God.

How in the world do you respond to that one? I am pretty sure that Jami was shocked and bewildered while the man walked away but then hurt and anger settled in. I think anger is appropriate sometimes. It is an emotion that God put in us to use when things are unjust. we are told to be angry and sin not. it is very easy to sin when we are angry but we are not told to not be angry.

I was angry but I also know to expect persecution. Jesus said that the godly in Christ WILL suffer persecution. Not everybody is going to like me and you. Out of 100 people 25 will not like you. Are we going to look at the 25 who don’t or the 75 who do? I told Jami that. I also told Jami that sometimes people like my posts, love my posts,wow at my posts, are angry about what happened in my posts but sometimes, I get one or two laughy face emojis.

Do I focus on the laughy faces and get upset? No. Those people are not worth it to me. Who cares? Those two laughy face people did not tell me to write or blog. God himself did. I care what God thinks about my writing more than what I care about what anyone else thinks. I value God’s opinion more than I do people’s opinion. I still care about people and desire to help people and give the comfort which I myself have received. On a couple posts I had 8K likes, 12K likes and maybe three laughy face emojis. Where should my focus be?

That man was very judgemental towards both of my Son’s. Where was his judgement toward the man who took my Son’s life? That’s where judgement should lie. Why would anyone say my Child was somehow deserving of murder because of the way he looked? How does he know that my Child was not following God? Why was he making assumptions because of how he looked? Valid questions, not judgement.

What a depraved world we live in. What’s sad to me is that there was absolutely NO sympathy towards Jami.None. No shock. No “I’m sorry.” Nothing. Nothing but judgement.

All I can do is look at what the Word  of God says about this kind of judgement. Not all judgement is created equal but I’ll save that for another post.

“Do not judge or you too will be judged. You will be judged and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” Matthew 7:1-2