My feelings are hurt.

Ah... it's nothing that'll really harm me, and nothing I won't get over, but still, my feelings are hurt.

All of ours have been, and we've all hurt another's.... But today they're mine... and I really didn't deserve it.

Not that I think it was purposed to hurt. I'm pretty sure that the person wouldn't have done it if they'd known that they would. But even strangers can hurt another at the expense of their being the target of their fun.

Who hasn't laughed (even while trying to be discrete) at a passer-byer at one time or another? It's fun to make fun. It's fun to ridicule. It's fun to find hilarious in the craziness (or weirdness!) of others. It's even more fun when friends will roll with you in your laughter.

But, ouch! For the one that's being made fun of.

It's a "Father, forgive them, they know not what they do" kind of a moment (Luke 23:34). Seriously. They don't really know what they're doing (inside you), and thus, they really don't mean to be doing it. They're just living life. Just needing a laugh. Just needing to find humor and some fun in something somehow somewhere.

"Judge not, that you be not judge" (Matt 7:1).  I've done it too. I'm a guilty as they are. I have no right to cast the first stone, I am not guiltless either.

"You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things" (Rom 2:1).

You who pass judgment do the same things????

I challenge you to look. I challenge you to test that. I challenge you to attempt to prove that not true. Because, truly, God knew what He meant when He said it. We do to others the very things that we complain about them doing.

We'll complain to someone else about a mom making fun of our child, and then make fun of theirs. We'll complain about someone else talking about us, and promptly go to someone else to talk about them (Today's case in point!). We'll drive slow in traffic looking for our turn, and dog another that's driving slow in front of us for the very same reasons. We'll answer our phone while talking with another, and then think it rude when they answer their ring. We'll get mad at our husbands or children for not picking up the mess our dog has just made while we're guilty too of stepping right over it ourselves. We don't want to do something for somebody else, yet in a minute we're wanting them to do something for us.

I watched this truth fall open so perfectly before me not too many years ago. It was crazy! Every time that someone was complaining to me of something, I saw them doing the very same things! So much so, that I begin listening to myself to see what I was complaining about, and 100% of the time I surprisingly saw myself guilty!

Let me share a perfect example in what I saw my husband do:

My husband had an event to go to that I wasn't too keen on going with him on. I had planned to go anyway. I knew that I should. I never debated not going, even though I'd rather not have to. But when the morning arrived for us to go I had completely forgotten about it. My husband wasn't here when I got up and so I started cleaning instead. When he drove up when time to leave he found me still in my jammies and looking quite horrid. He immediately got mad at me for not being ready and said that I never wanted to go in the first place. I didn't. Not really. But still, give me credit, I really had planned to.

I ran to paint and repair what I could do in a hurry and got ready in lickety-split timing. He sat on the couch in a pout. And he promptly told me that he wasn't going that it was too late to leave when I got done. I apologized profusely. But it still didn't raise him out of his funk.

Then he said, "I know you don't want to go anyway. And I don't want to ride all the way there with you sitting there giving me the silent treatment in your mad."

"Oh really," I said. "You mean that you don't want to me to do to you what you are doing to me right now... siting in your silented pout while steaming in your mad because things didn't go as you'd planned it."

Granted. I can be mean. I have my days. But seriously, I wasn't mad or being mean then. I was sincerely sorry and seriously made a mistake, but I saw clearly the lesson that I was learning.

We're often guilty of saying things like, "He won't listen to me".... when, we're failing to listen to him! "She won't forgive me"... while we're refusing to forgive her. "You won't even try to see my point".... when we can't see theirs either from seeing only our own.

These aren't the best examples that I've left here. When God had me in the throes of this lesson I saw the truth of it everywhere. I couldn't even have a good argument with my husband, because I knew I was just as guilty (when seeing it in a new light) as he was.

One thing I try to teach my children all the time is seeing people past what they "do." What they "did" is not who they are. Don't make it be and falsely see them that way. We're usually pretty good at it. But at the beginning of this year a friend of my oldest daughter's did something I was greatly disappointed in. It's been a little challenging for me to get over it. Meanwhile, I had gotten in touch with a very old friend from a very LONG TIME ago that had once been in prison. My daughter has had a hard time seeing him past what he once did and not giving him a chance to be something new now. I was having a conversation with her about it, telling her how wrong that was. And, of course(!), she asked me, "You mean like what you're doing to my friend?"

Shooosh! She's right! It's a constant and continual challenge! As the song sings, He's still working on me... to make me what I ought to be.... It took Him just a week to make the moon and the stars, the sun and the earth, and Jupiter, and Mars... How loving and patient He must be... Cause He's still working on me!

My feelings are officially UN-hurt now! I've got enough stuff for God to work on in me to worry about something as silly as that. May God bless the girl who made me rethink some things! May He do incredible things to encourage and make her feel good this week! We're all walking our paths on this earth. It's hard. It can be mean. We need each other. May we be able to hold hands as we walk this road. No time to fret. Life's too short to grovel. And goodness, too quick to harbor a hurt and spend being mad at another!

I'm just a girl, a human, just skin... that a heart lives in! Not perfect!!! So why am I often surprised at the imperfections of another? Another skin.... with a heart living in it. Needing love and all the same kinds of things that mine does.

Less of me, Lord! And more of YOU! Until there's ALL of YOU... and none of me left!