Disqualified.

Please, tell me. Am I a bad person because I'm trying to figure life out? Am I a bad person because I have a tattoo and am planning on getting more? Am I bad because I have friends who aren't Christians? Am I a bad person because I DON'T only listen to Christian music? Am I a bad person because I don't mind when people swear and don't force my beliefs on others, shoving it down their throats until they feel uncomfortably awkward?


It feels like people define your moral status on silly things like.....swearing......or tattooing/piercing your body.......or the music you listen to. And I know it's ridiculous, but it's true. Or they judge you on your past when you screwed up beyond what you could tell the world. But you are only yesterday's girl/boy if you live for yesterday. Live for a better tomorrow. And be the best you. .....But sometimes it's disappointing knowing that people judge you on such a shallow level. You get a tattoo and all of a sudden you're a bad influence. OR you get a tattoo and JUST BECAUSE nobody could ever expect you to do such an "extreme" thing, you were influenced by someone who's a "bad influence." Or just because you don't have the exact beliefs or thoughts that you did when you were ten, you are so much different. I don't know.....maybe it's just me. .....And the sad thing is, I never thought I would be the person that people thought that of. ha! But I guess things happen.


I think most of my teenage years....and life, I was really afraid to do certain things, because I didn't want to disappoint the people around me. That's such a chained up belief. Where's the individuality? I remember a few people talked to me about how they weren't sure how to tell their parents....or their friends.....or their loved ones in general something, because they were so afraid of how they would take it. And I would say "They're going to love you no matter what. Love isn't that weak." And I think everything has been made more complicated than that. Humans do fail. We have a hard time loving......sometimes when the people crying out for it need it the most. We all fail. We all make mistakes--some bigger than others. We shouldn't aim towards making mistakes, we should try to always better ourselves....but sometimes we make mistakes. I think the difference, though, in all of this is what our aim is. What are we looking at on this journey? Are we looking at the acceptance from the people around us.....anyone really? Are we looking at the rules we have to follow? Are we staring, insecurely, at the fears that have held us back.....and are continuing to hold us back? What's your aim at?


There are so many things that we don't understand in this world. There are SOOOO many opportunities to just be an average joe and settle for looking at people with the SAME exact eyes that everyone else--society, even religious beings--look at. But really, what makes us any different than the person to the right of us? I talked to my kids at youth group about looking at people with different eyes. Honestly, it's hard for me. It has been REALLY hard for me in the past year. Maybe since senior year, actually. It's hard when you have a reality of what people have been to you, to other people, and to look past that. Let's be real? It's hard. But I gave the example (thanks to my friend) of looking at people with dirty glasses. I brought out an old pair of my glasses, smudged with lotion all over them. They were really hard to see out of. I mean, you could see people and things somewhat--it wasn't COMPLETELY opaque. But you couldn't see the details of them. You couldn't see the freckles on their face, the brightness in their eyes, the lines around their eyes. You couldn't' see past the basics of their physicality. Then I made them look through really clean glasses. You could see the specks in their eyes. You could see things that made them look different than everyone else. Ultimately, you could see them much more clearly than you could with the last pair.


Why do we look at people with such shallow expectations? We look at people and judge them so harshly. We see that that have tattoos on their body--oh, they must automatically be rebellious. We see that they don't have a good job--oh, they must automatically be under qualified. We see that they never went to college--they must be extremely ignorant. We see their age--they must not understand. We see their past--they must be bad people. We see that they swear or that they believe differently than we do or even that they smoke or drink......they must automatically be horrible people. We need too STOP looking at people in such a shallow way!! You are not rebellious just because you have tattoos. You are not under qualified just because you couldn't get a good job. You are not ignorant just because you never went to college. You are not a bad person just because you have a past. You are not a horrible person just because you swear, or just because you smoke or have a drink once in a while. Stop disqualifying people!! Everyone has a past! Everyone has messed up in one way or another. Let alone, everyone has screwed up to your standards. I'm not saying that we should lower our standards, necessarily. I'm saying that we need to stop, and take in the beauty around us. It's really hard. I've learned this growing up (umm.....as I still am...). I have a really hard time, sometimes, not saying something bad about someone who's hurt me. Honestly, that's really hard for me. And more than that, it's extremely hard for me not to look at someone differently because of what they've done to me. It's human. I'm human. Sometimes I slip, and say things that I shouldn't have said about them. I'm trying to fix that.....but that doesn't mean I won't screw up on occasions. But how are we different? I think we need to start looking at the good in people. That's a quality of love. It's a quality that I used to have and use REALLY easily. It never was extremely hard for me. And even when it was, I still pushed myself to believe what I thought was right--that everyone needed love, no matter what state they were in. But I think as you get older, that principle gets harder. We need to stop disqualifying people, just because they look different, believe differently, or are different in general than we are.


Someone said recently that we need to stop claiming that we're Christians if we don't act like it. I think, honestly, I don't want to act like a lot of Christians do. I've known a lot of Christian who have been EXTREMELY judgmental, and have disqualified people just because they were different. A lot of Christians (don't get the idea that all do, though, because that's not true) throw the knife at decent people who aren't the same in their beliefs as they are. I want to act like a Jesus. I want to love people, no matter what their body looks like. I want to love people no matter what their past is. I want to love people, beyond what qualifies them for love. ....Dig deep and get to know their heart. It's time to stop being shallow and looking at the parts that really shouldn't disqualify them for love. It's easy to put someone down if you don't have the same issues as they do. Step in someone else's shoes and learn to love beyond what you're limited to seeing. We aren't God. We don't know everything.


Challenge of the day for me. It's not always easy, but it's love, the way I believe it's supposed to be.