CARRY

Have you ever looked at someone and made an opinion of who they are just by the way they carry themselves?

I remember when I was a teenager, sometime after we had moved from Ohio to Texas, I would take walks at night on the grounds of this apartment complex we lived in. I just wanted to get away, alone, and process my thoughts. Back then at the age of 15 or 16 having moved from a country home I had lived in before the age of memory retention began, to a new state, a new school and in the first time a residence in a city. I had a lot on my mind. 

I would take walks at night, passing by the playground on our apartment grounds and seeing other teenagers hanging out by the swings.  I was shy and didn’t know them, so I kept on walking. Later on, I befriended one of those teenagers, and he told me they all thought I was stuck up, a term we used for someone who thought they were better than others.  I remember feeling aghast at that thought and asked him why they thought that. He told me it was the way I carried myself. 

That was far from my realty.

Later in life, I made friends with a women at a church we attended. She revealed to me during a Ladies Day canoe outing that she had always wanted to approach me, but felt like she wasn’t good enough to be my friend! Again, I was astonished at her words as I usually was the one never feeling like I was good enough to make friends with others. When asked why, she said, “you always carry yourself in a way that says you have your act together. You always dress nice, your hair is perfect and you are always so polite.” WOW! If only they knew! I felt like I had to measure up to fit in!

I bring all this up to remind each of us, even myself, that we should never judge a book by its cover, so to speak. But crack that book open and spend some time reading the pages before we decide what it’s all about.

Like me, someone who is quiet, reserved and too often intimidated by others, people judged me based on how I carried myself. They formed opinions without knowing the facts. They had no clue I was lonely, intimidated and sometimes downright afraid to approach them.

In the Scriptures, John 17 vs 24 says “Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgement.”  Passing judgement, or as we think of it, making an opinion of someone, based on appearance (i.e. the way they carry themselves, or dress, or skin color, or any other myriad of things) is foolish. How about we find out about that person, get to know them and decide after we’ve learned from facts, whether we pursue a relationship. 

I know the people I have taken the time to get to know, are worth the time, and yes sometimes effort, of building relationships with. Some of them are my best friends.

STOP
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