We recently spent some unplanned time at the emergency room, resulting in a short hospital stay for my husband. My feelings are mixed about these places that get us the help we need in critical moments. Certainly thankful for access to medical care and for the healthcare and administrative people that serve in all the various ways. For tests, technology, supplies, and medication. For smiles and incredible patience these teams extend to all the hurting, sick, grumpy, or scared visitors to their work spaces. But also a little heartsick when immersed with so many others’ walking through their hurts too.
As I left one evening after dark, the main entrance was closed and all foot traffic routed through the ER doors instead. Crossing the threshold into the ER waiting area, I was surprised by the number of people there; literally dozens occupied the small stuffy space where hardly any empty chairs remained. My pace slowed under what felt like a heavy cloud of burdens these waiting souls were bearing. Blank stares, handfuls of wadded tissue, whispered conversations, heads bowed in muffled cries, sharp impatience with too-active kiddos who just don’t understand, loud anxious questions to staff of when will you see me, when will you tell me something, anything? Even the cool night breeze wasn’t enough to dispel my feelings of what they were going through; it was only hours before that I too was sitting in those same seats, wondering and waiting.
I was tired and deep in thought as I navigated home for a few hours’ sleep, reflecting on the different patients, visitors, and care staff we had seen in our hospital journey so far, yet I didn’t know any of their stories, just faces and voices. I was focused on our own stuff, oblivious of anyone else, when I was made noisily aware of my wandering thoughts by a car horn in the turn lane behind me, begging me to take MY turn already! Gaaah! I was the thoughtless traffic-jerk I’d encountered so often before!
And then it hit me, how the car-honker didn’t know anything about the day I’d had, and I didn’t know how deeply worried the ER-waiters were, or how bone-weary that nurse was from covering extra hours for a colleague who was late. How in our put-on (or maybe not even put-on) faces and words and tone we have no idea what our fellow image-bearers are walking through when our own walk brushes against theirs.
Our perception and assumptions can make us feel judgmental or unforgiving:
*That store clerk was so rude; we might not shop here again.
*That guy wandering in the diaper aisle looks so spaced out; I wonder if he’s on drugs?
*The couple at the primo table by the window finished their coffee long ago; I wish they’d move along, I’d really like to sit there.
*Why is that mom yelling at her babies? They’re so little!
*The new neighborhood girl is always by herself; is there something wrong with her?
*Steer clear of that older lady with the short red hair; she’s always grumpy.
*You’re out here in traffic; just go already!
When in reality:
*The frazzled store clerk’s teenage daughter is on the run – again.
*The new-baby-dad is in shock from just being laid off from his job.
*The couple is agonizing (and procrastinating) over care options for his aging parents.
*The young mom of twins is completely overwhelmed with her own life-threatening diagnosis.
*The lonely freshman is bullied and belittled every day.
*The used-to-be-fiery widow is facing the one-year anniversary of you-know-what.
*Sometimes we’re just straight-up jerks.
At any given moment, we’re all going through something challenging, concerning, or that we’ve never done before. Fear, frustration, and impatience can make us lose sight of that, with ourselves and with others. We forget that the world doesn’t revolve around us, that we’re not the only ones fighting for just one minute of relief and quiet. That other people are people too. And how much it meant when that really nice person let us go ahead of them in the checkout line or paid for our food order just because or lugged our shopping cart to the cart corral while we corralled the littles into their assigned seats.
Jesus knew we needed love-based guidance for living with His loved ones. One day He was with His disciples and a crowd of local folks, praying, ministering, healing, and teaching on a variety of subjects. Sandwiched between loving your enemies and trees being known by their fruit, He addresses judging others (well, really, NOT judging others):
“Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you.” ~ Luke 6:37-38
That’s a little bit ‘ouch’ at first (especially if you’re the car-honker from last week!). But He loves us enough to tell us how this works in His kingdom, what measuring system is being used, what the expectations are, and the promise it contains, IF…
IF we will remember for a second that we’re on a level playing field as humans and be less judge and critic and more forgiver and giver. We’re promised a lap full of something either way…
How many times have we thought to ourselves, while under the glare and snorting impatience of someone we are clearly irritating, Dude, just back off a little bit; you have no idea what I’m dealing with right now! We don’t; we really don’t! You’ve heard this many times but we truly have no idea what everyone we encounter is going through; we can use our own lives as comparison, though. That means the field is wide open for us to “consider others better than ourselves” and be kind for a minute.
Being the one who so often craves just a little more patience, compassion, a listening ear, a smile, a cheerful tone, an encouraging word, a thinking-of-you text from a friend, or even a huge sacrificial gesture is a great reminder to be more thoughtful myself. Oh, and because “it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” (God, please help me remember when it matters!)
Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering; bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another; even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do. But above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfection. ~ Colossians 3:12-14
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image by deva williamson on unsplash