I spend a lot of time scrolling through Facebook, especially when I’m trying to pass time in between classes. But, the other day I stumbled upon an article that changed the way I look at things.
I’m not sure about you, but talking about gay rights bothers me. I’ve struggled with accepting this for some time now, but this article helped me make up my mind completely. From watching gay marriage become legal in the US, to listening to my friends occasionally chat about it, I find my selfish, sinful mind start to hate these innocent people.
Why, though?
I can’t hate people. Not only is it against how my parents raised me, but against my own beliefs. So why do I have such a hard time accepting this?
Sure, I may not agree with this kind of marriage or lifestyle, but that doesn’t mean I hate you. It means the exact opposite, actually.
I love you, just as I was taught to love all people no matter what. In the past, I’ve found my mind racing to the conclusion that anyone who was different than me was strange and had his or her own problems. But, I’ve grown up, looked in the mirror and seen that I’m so far from perfect it hurts. This is where the good news comes in.
I’m not perfect and neither are you. Sorry if that totally burst your bubble, but it’s true. Every once in awhile something comes up and hits me out of nowhere and wakes me up. The other day it was the article that this woman had written about her view on her old friend who had transitioned to a female, and no matter how other people viewed her old friend, she vowed that the right thing to do was love this friend unconditionally.
So that’s why I’m writing this.
I’ve messed up. I’ve sinned. I’ve had nasty thoughts about those innocent, God- created humans, who have done nothing wrong to me and I’ve hated on them without even knowing them. This has to end because hate is one day going to ruin us all. Hate slowly kills us all and leads us nowhere. Like my mom says, “Only God can judge, not us".
I have had countless adults in my life tell me this phrase several times, “We’re all humans, and God created us all in His image, so we should love them”. Sure, loving someone who you don’t fully agree with can be tricky, but life isn’t meant to be easy. Our time here is so short, and we shouldn’t spend it hating people who we don’t even know. We only see people at a surface level and sometimes judge them too quickly.
What we all need to learn from this, including myself, is to love.
