Stop Judging
My husband is extremely judgmental of my sock habits.
I say this because last night, before bed, I decided it was time to change the sheets. (It’s so much easier to change sheets with two people, don’t you think?) So there we are, in our pajamas, teeth brushed, and I say, “Wait! Don’t get in yet.” And I run clear to the other side of the house, to the laundry room cabinet where we keep the clean sheets, grab a pillow pack, and sprint back to our room.
If you don’t know what a pillow pack is, it’s the world’s most brilliant way to fold sheets. Just pull the clean sheets out of the dryer, cram them in one of the pillowcases, fluff, and voila. A clean sheet pillow pack that can double as a throw pillow, if you need one. This is where the judgment starts.
I pull the wrinkled sheets out of the pillow pack, and he just stares. “What?” I say.
“I’ve never known anybody else who does sheets that way.” (Notice he doesn’t say who folds sheets that way, since I don’t actually fold them.)
“Genius, isn’t it?” I say.
“Hmmph,” he says.
We proceed to strip the bed of the current sheets, and this is where the judgment continues. At the bottom of our bed, crammed between the top sheet and the bottom sheet, are approximately 472 thousand socks.
All mine.
He picks one up and dangles it in the air like it’s evidence at a crime scene. “Explain this,” he says, and I wait for a bright light to shine in my face.
“What?” I say.
That’s when he pulls them out, one by one, and tosses them to my side of the bed, counting each one out loud, as if that will somehow provide the proof he needs to convict me.
The crime? Indecent exposure, I guess.
I have no idea why my feet choose to perform a striptease act in the bed every night. I go to bed fully foot-clothed. But somehow, someway as I sleep, my feet wake up and have a party and every morning I find them conked out, naked as jaybirds, their clothes hidden from sight.
It’s not like I can control what they do when I’m sleeping.
I’ve tried everything I know to make them behave. I’ve bought tighter-fitting socks. (Okay, that’s all I’ve tried, because that’s all I know to do.) But considering I can’t seem to help myself, and considering I’ve taken steps to correct the problem, to no avail, I think I should be shown some mercy.
I wonder how many times I’ve judged people harshly for things they have no control over, or things they’re trying their best to correct? Too many times, I’m sure. I’m so glad God is a merciful judge. He’s rooting for us in every way, and when we fall short of perfect, He cuts us some slack. He knows when we’re trying and when things are out of our control. When He sees we’re doing our best He always, always chooses love and compassion over a harsh punishment.
God wants us to treat each other the same way. He doesn’t want us to judge each other cruelly. He hates it when we’re sharp and unforgiving. He even said that He’ll judge us with the same strict severity we show to others. So if we want God’s mercy and compassion, we need to show mercy and compassion to others.
Fortunately, my sweetheart’s judgment of my wild foot parties doesn’t affect his love or treatment of me. Last night, after the interrogation, he gathered my socks and took them to the laundry room. Then he helped me change the sheets and found me a clean, fresh pair of socks to start out the night. And this morning, when we woke up, he didn’t say a word about my cold, naked feet.
“Do not judge, so that you will not be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you,” Matthew 7:1-2.