Who learns most when teaching lessons?

(This is an entry I wrote back in July and never posted)

Okay, so today I have been working on the Relief Society lesson for tomorrow. (for those who don't know what relief society is, it's the Women's organization of the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Any lady 18 or older can participate. It's a lot of fun, and I love doing things with the RS) I've been reading the article (Developing Good Judgement and Not Judging Others" by Elder Schwitzer I'll put the link at the bottom of the page.) over and over again since last Sunday and I really don't know how to approach it. I think I have taught two other lessons in the past ... ten years ... and gee... this is a tough topic. Probably one I needed to teach in order to put the appropriate amount of reflection into allowing myself to change.

Judging others is a weakness that I've been trying to overcome for a LONG time. I've realized I have no business making a judgement about someone else because I have no clue what experiences they've had and what has brought them to where they are right now. I mean, when I think about it, my high school friends and I had this running joke about an imaginary Mountain View Mental Hospital and how we were going to ship different people off there because they were obviously insane. None of which I remotely understood and therefore felt completely comfortable making fun of others with those types of problems.

How wrong I was! Enter my illness. Suddenly I found myself shipped off to several very real institutions and realizing that these people were just as normal as I was, they were struggling with life in a way I would only come to understand through years of going through it myself.

It's often easy and often more comfortable to make fun of something we don't understand than to put forth the effort necessary to comprehend it.

I've made some very dear friends while living in group homes, crisis houses, hospitals and institutions. Some of these people are absolutely hilarious and really have a way of lifting my spirits. All of whom I would have never even met had I not experienced a mental illness and the anguish, joy, humiliation, peace and down right bizarre life that can accompany it. All of whom I had completely discounted as a teenager.

Now when people do things, the first question I ask myself is why? What's their motivation? It's interesting because we can honestly never know. The only person who can see the whole picture is God. He's the only one who can truly not look on the outside appearances of a situation but instead look at our hearts. That doesn't justify our good or bad behaviour. But it does at least give us leeway for those things that not a single other person can understand in this world. And only He can take a step back and, if we let him, lead us to a better place in our lives, relationships, beliefs, hopes and expectations. Love, MOPS

http://lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=1810de009da38210VgnVCM100000176f620a____&vgnextoid=f318118dd536c010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD

The interesting thing about this lesson is it just didn't come together until the very LAST minute.

The entire week I was preparing for this lesson, I kept getting caught up in how many times I've been judged by hundreds of people because of my illness.

I've even had friends call others and forbid them to let me become a roommate because I was too ill. However, at that particular time in my life, I was stable. It made me boil with anger because that old friend hadn't seen me in two years and had no clue how well I was doing.

As I was thinking about being judgemental during Sacrament meeting (the day I was to teach the lesson) I realized something very important. Here I was judging someone for judging me. The irony of the situation was mind boggling.

I had gotten mad and frustrated with people for making rash judgements about me and in the process I was judging them.

They were making judgements about me because they'd seen me ill (in a completely debilitating manner) for nearly 11 years. Yet, because they hadn't been around recently & and able to see my stability, they assumed I was still ill. If I had been around someone who'd been ill for so long, I would assume they were still ill too.

I judged people just as harshly as they had judged me. Lesson Learned!