Humility

I had a major "bite your tongue" moment yesterday when a friend posted a "gofundme" account.  This doesn't infuriate me because of the content but because last year, at this exact time, I posted a "gofundme" link for a close friend whose house was leveled in a tornado.  I was given crap by this friend because "insurance pays for that stuff" and "more people were affected than just her so why does SHE deserve money?"  This friend gave me a real verbal punch for my "favoritism" to this girl, although she was one of only a few in the town that literally lost EVERYTHING (not just damage but literally EVERYTHING).  In fact, she is still displaced...her house is under construction but she is still, over a year later, not back home.  The accusor (as in, the friend who gave me crap) posted a "gofundme" for a victim of the recent tornadoes whose house was leveled.  She picked one out of all of these victims who lost everything and gave her favor.

At first I was furious.  I was ready to give her the same verbal punch and tell her that she was hypocritical for what she did.  I was ready to spew hate from my mouth over feeling that she had been so unfair to me.  And then it hit me....

God has a funny way of humbling you sometimes.  Was this friend completely unfair in the attack on my post last year?  Yes.  Was she being hypocritical by doing the same thing now?  Yes.  But it doesn't matter, in the long run.  It doesn't matter a bit.  The bigger picture is that both of those families (the one I posted and the one she posted) DO need a helping hand.  The bigger picture is that she, now, understands that my post wasn't about singling out or showing favoritism; it was about helping someone who'd lost everything.  The bigger picture is that our friendship is more important to me than being right.  The bigger picture is that God humbled her heart so that she would learn a lesson and it was not my place to "punish" her.  The bigger picture is that God humbled MY heart, in that moment, to understand that it wasn't about me, at all.

You see, God has a way of allowing you to see the other side of the argument.  What you were a victim of in the past, God will often allow you to be on the other side of.  Sometimes, you realize that you were quick to judge and that you were not the victim that you thought you were. Sometimes you realize that you were definitely a victim BUT you make a better decision on how to handle it.  Sometimes you handle the situation in the same negative way it was done to you.  These situations aren't meant to punish you but to teach you.  The situations aren't meant to make you pay but to make you pray.  These situations are meant to let you know that it's not about you, sometimes....it's about a bigger picture.

So the next time you want to scream at someone's hypocrisy, take an emotional step back and look at the opportunity you have.  God made be touching your heart .  We are not designed to judge but to encourage and help.