What’s Her Story?
Have you ever felt judged? And in that moment thought, “If they only knew my story, they wouldn’t judge me.”
The issue of judgement, being judged, not judging others, can be touchy. The world cries out “Doesn’t your God say not to judge?”
The Bible does tell us to judge right: “Open your mouth, judge righteously, And plead the cause of the poor and needy.” Proverbs 31:9 NKJ “Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment.” John 7:24 NAS “Do not twist justice in legal matters by favoring the poor or being partial to the rich and powerful. Always judge people fairly.” Lev. 19:15 NLT
Judge right, the Bible says, not critically and with condemnation: “Don’t speak evil against each other, dear brothers and sisters. If you criticize and judge each other, then you are criticizing and judging God’s law. But your job is to obey the law, not to judge whether it applies to you. God alone, who gave the law, is the Judge. He alone has the power to save or to destroy. So what right do you have to judge your neighbor?” James 4: 10-12 NLT
The Bible also warns to judge yourself first: “But if we judged ourselves rightly, we would not be judged.” 1 Cor 11:31 NAS “Do not judge so that you will not be judged. For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ and behold, the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.” “Do not give what is holy to dogs, and do not throw your pearls before swine, or they will trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces.” Matt 7: 1-6 NAS
So, how do I know the difference between a righteous judgment and being judgmental toward someone? Well, are you gently reproving someone who is in sin, speaking the truth in love, in order that they may hear you and repent? Or are you putting yourself on a pedestal while shaming another individual? Are you speaking out for what is right, moral and godly? Or are you protesting with disgust in your heart toward those living in sin? It’s the difference between saying, “That’s sin and you should not do it,” and “I would never do something like that.”
For example, I can say, “Abortion is wrong, it is the taking of the life of an unborn child.” But such a statement is often met with, “You shouldn’t judge a woman’s choice to abort, you don’t know why she chose it.” No, I don’t know why she chose it, just like I don’t know why a man would beat his wife, or a person would choose to rape a child. I don’t have to know the “whys” in each individual situation to know that each instance is still a moral wrong. But I have also seen statements from prolife folks on news threads that tell women they should have been aborted themselves if they are prochoice. This is a moral wrong as well.
We can speak the truth in love, give factual information, and expose sin without being hateful, spiteful and judgmental. I can assess that fornication, adultery and homosexuality is sin. But if I begin to gossip to my friends with things like, “I would never live with a man before marriage,” or “I would never stay with a man who cheats,” or “my kid would never lust after someone of the same sex,” then I have just made inappropriate, judgmental statements by putting myself in another person’s shoes and making assumptions about how I would have done things differently.
I tend to read a lot of news stories on the internet, and follow up by reading the comments. Social media has a way of bringing out the best and worst in people. What’s typically hidden deep down in our hearts somehow finds its way on the world wide web’s comment section. Some of the things I see people say to one another are just awful, and extremely judgmental.
In recent news, we witnessed the obsessive coverage of the death of Harambe, the 17 year old gorilla shot to death in order to save the life of a small boy who fell in his enclosure. The hate and judgment of the boy’s mother, Michelle Gregg, was atrocious, to say the least. Comments like, “This would never happen to my child, I hope she gets prosecuted!” And, “What a horrible mother letting her kid out of her sight. She was probably taking selfies.” But the worst types of comments came from those who think the child should be placed for adoption or worse, that the gorilla should not have been killed inorder to save the child because, “it wasn’t Harambe’s fault the mother was irresponsible.”
I posted a “letter” to Ms. Gregg recently on Facebook as a gentle reminder that, while we can make a right assessment based on factual information, we do not have the moral right to judge the condition of this woman as a mother.
Hear is that letter (revised):
Dear Michelle Gregg,
About 11-12 years ago I took my 3 children to a local amusement park (Idlewild Park). This was long before selfies andsmartphones, but I’m sure I had a camera with me to snap a picture or two of our outing. During the course of the day, my then 4-5 year old got separated from me. I don’t remember how but I’m sure it’s because I wasn’t looking directly at him at that exact moment. I circled around, scanning the face of every small person I could see. Panic was trying to set in, but logic stayed its course. I called park police on my dinosaur Motorola. It would be a very nerve racking next 10 minutes. Park police called me back to let me know my son was being watched by a fellow lady park goer. They were about a 30 second walk from where we were on the other side of an amusement ride. I saw him before he saw me and he seemed fine. When he looked up and our eyes met he instantly began to cry and ran to my arms. The police and the nice lady where glad to see our reunion. There was no investigation. CPS wasn’t called. I never received hate mail questioning my motherhood. My job wasn’t threatened as I, too, worked with children. No, none of that happened. Oh, it very well could have. My son is a climber and boy, the places he could have climbed and the mischief he could have gotten into. But it ended uneventfully. We breathed a few sighs of relief, thanked those involved and went about our day. In another incident several years earlier, we had taken a road trip to Niagara Falls with our 3 small children. Brendan was 4, Elaine was 3 and Bryan, the child in the Idlewild story, was less than a year. We were strolling along the outside of the fenced bank of the raging river when all of the sudden I looked and Elaine was standing on the other side of the fence.In this situation, there were not one, but two sets of adult eyes that missed her crawl under the fence and head towards raging peril. In an instant, having no time to analyze if my yank would hurt her or not, I reach over, grabbed whatever part of her I could, and whipped her back over to our side of the fence. My heart stopped and raced at the same time! Again, although this could’ve ended very badly for our little family, we breathed a few sighs of relief and went about our day. Had your situation occurred in similar fashion without the terrible ending with the death of Harambe, you’d be about your normal routine as well. I was fortunate enough to have had rather uneventful endings to both of my stories. But you were not. As a result, those claiming, “I’d never let my child out of my sight,” are rearing their perfect-parent insults and judgments in your direction. Yes, hindsight is a wonderful thing and most accidents are preventable, but take heart knowing there are other mommies out there that have had a small child wander off and that occurrence makes us no less of a loving caring mother to that child.
In His Service,
Rebecca Hamilton, Founder/ Executive Director
For Every Great Battle, There is a Great Victory!!