A Life Lesson from my MOM

Do not Judge Others

Today I am thankful for lessons from my beautiful Mom.  I have always known I was lucky and special and to reinforce this belief, I only had to look at my Mom each day as a kid.  She is perfect.  I knew it then and I know it even more today.

She taught me how to play ball, how to clean and most importantly how to be kind and not judge others.

When I was a very young boy, the church I grew up in had strict standards. Somethings we were warned against not to ever do and one of them was smoking.  Being young and ignorant in many ways, I will never forget the lesson my Mom taught me.

You see, we had a relative who smoked, and because of this I was a little scared of him.  I thought at that time, based upon what I had thought I had been taught ( the key word here is thought, as it was not what I really had been taught by my parents or even my church), this habit was about the worse thing anyone could do. Right up there with the worst of all sins!!

I said “Mom, Why does XXXXX smoke?  I went on to say, that is really bad Mom!!, is XXXXX not a nice person?

I remember My MOM looking straight at me, with a stern but kind look,  “Daren, all of us have challenges and all of us do bad things,  we all sin.  If all of our sins made us smell like smoke we would all stink very bad.   She went on to say, Smoking may be one of the least serious sins in the world  compared to the sins people do and hide from. And she stated XXXXX is actually a very wonderful man.

WOW, her words hit me hard!  They still hit me hard.  Because even as a small boy I know if what I did wrong, made me smell like smoke, I would stink worse than many other people who I pretended to be better than in my own mind.

I would like to say I stopped judging that day, it still happens, but then I reflect quickly on this lesson from my Mom and that my judgements leave “smells” just like a puffs of smoke. I can say when I do judge I mentally start to stink and try and repent to become a better person.  “Work on yourself, Daren”

“Cast the beam from your own eye first”

I love my MOM for what she taught me!