Judge Not, That Ye Be Not Judged!

I lived in New Zealand for a year as an exchange student while in high school. It opened my eyes to many things. One thing that I learned was that I was judgmental of others who were not like me or I couldn't relate to somehow. Not big judgments, just some. I learned to not have any by the time my year was up. When I returned I was very tolerant of others.

When I married, I would hear a commentary about everyone or everything. There was always an opinion about others. When I got divorced, I would hear "in my head" what would have been said for several years as I was so used to hearing it. After much prayer, I was blessed to be able to let that issue go.

I found myself judging others for messy yards or those who had messy houses thinking, "I am a single mom with 5 kids, if I can keep my house clean, why can't they?" or some similar comment.

Beware of critical thinking. One night I was reading in the scriptures and I thought how cool it would be to have a dream and see where God lived. I have read many books about people who have died and met Christ or Heavenly Father and thought, "If they can see and meet him, I wonder if I could see him and remember him in a dream." So, that night in my prayers, I asked that I be able to see where Heavenly Father lives.

The next morning, I woke to remember this dream. "I was with a guide of some type. I don't know who or even remember if it was male or female. They told me I couldn't go where God lived. I told them I wanted to see where he lived. They patiently took me to a gate of some kind. There were two men dressed in white. They stopped me. I asked why I couldn't enter. I was a good person and was doing what I should and had been taught all my life. They told me, "You are critical and judgmental." I was shocked for a moment and disappointed. They were right. I was critical.

You would think that experience would have been enough to help me get over my critical thinking and judgments. It wasn't.

Within 2 years or so, I had about 11 floods in my house. Some were only minor and 3-4 were major issues. I also had a birds nest in my attic which allowed bird mites in to haunt us for a full year. We were bitten any time we would sit more than 3 minutes in one spot. I will probably write more on this issue later but because of the bugs, we had to spray diatomaceous earth through the house amongst other things and ended up with a very thick coating of white on every surface that we couldn't dust for months. It looked like we lived in a haunted house.

With the constant floods one after another, we would move food storage from the storage room and have a trail through the house. Once that was done, the bathroom and laundry room flooded, after that, the family room wall fell off when we moved out of the house for two month to get rid of the biting mites.

What do you think my house and yard looked like after those two years?

Now, when I drive by or visit someones house that isn't as orderly as it could be, my first thought is, "I wonder what is going on in their life?" Here is a picture of my family room now versus the top picture. There was a blessing with all of it in that I got a new shower and update in the basement bath, new carpet in most of the basement, finished the storage room, got new flooring in the kitchen and upstairs bathroom, and learned a whole lot about plumbing and repair work as none of the floods were covered or weren't worth claiming. THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO HELPED ME ON THE DIFFERENT PROJECTS! I count you all as blessings in my life.

I am not perfect and find myself struggling at times still with judgment of others, but I have come to find myself much more tolerant thanks to a Loving Father that new I needed a lesson. I have never asked in prayer to visit again where God lives, I think I am afraid of the outcome. Perhaps someday....