So, as the title says, I'm in Mexico at a YWAM base visiting my sister who is a missionary here. I came here knowing that I was going to learn something, but definitely not expecting to learn about judging others. In fact, I thought I did pretty well in that area. It turns out that I was completely wrong.
Part of the reason (besides visiting my sister who I hadn't seen in 8 months) for coming to Mexico was to meet my sister's boyfriend, who she's planning on marrying. (And vice-versa) ;) I thought it was perfectly natural that I come and meet him, since I don't chat often on facebook, and it gave me another reason to come on down. He's an awesome guy by the way, but he was pretty scared of my coming to "report" on him back to the family. That's totally natural, only, I didn't think of how he must be feeling before. Either way, he was really hurt by my family's judging him and placing him in a box before we even met him personally.
That was one apology. The other one was to a woman speaker at the base, named Mary Jean. (She's an awesome lady by the way.) :) I've been brought up in a church and family which believe that women should remain silent in the church. So her being a woman was already an obstacle. When I sat down to listen to her, I determined that I would try to overlook her being a woman and would listen anyways. She is a very good speaker and I learned a lot from her.
A few days later, I got into a conversation with her. She told me that from the moment I sat down, she felt a really heavy air of judgement coming from me. I was shocked. Firstly, I had no idea that I was even judging her, and secondly, the fact that she could tell was really surprising to me. I think judgement must be a huge blind spot in my life, obviously stemming from pride (which I really struggle with). It is so hard to put ourselves lower than we think we deserve. Especially when we deserve nothing.
I deserve nothing. Yet, my Saviour somehow sees through the filth of my sin and loves anyways. Amazing? I think so.
