loving when we want to judge

I can't remember any time recently but I can tell you that I have in the past done some judging. I looked up to someone who was, I thought a person of integrity, who walked the walk and it matched his talk. I loved to look up to him, be around him and be challenged by him. He was someone that a lot of people to this day still look up to and admire. What changed you ask? What was it that made these things change?
He became judgmental towards me and my actions. He started looking down on me and questioning things that I did, that had never been questioned before. I didn't like it, I didn't immediately react to it, but eventually the reaction came. It came in the form of returned judgment. I immediately started being able to see his flaws, his shortcomings and his mistakes. They jumped out at me in everything that he did. At times we were doing great things and all I could focus on was his flaws. Why? Because I was forced into judging him the way he judged me. I was young, I fell right into Satan's trap.
Luke 6:38 "Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For the measure you use, it will be measured to you."
JEsus spoke those words when talking about being critical and judging others. Many times this verse is taken out of context as a monetary setting. But, that is no where close to where Jesus was going with it. Jesus was showing us that the moment we become judgmental towards others, it will be returned far greater.
Just like my situation, where I was as far from judgmental as could be, I fell into the traps of Satan by judging based on someone judging me.
It goes back to childhood, think about it. Alexa and PJ are playing together in the living room with some sort of game. I walk into the room and tell Alexa her room is dirty and needs to be straightened up, what do you think her immediate response is? You got it, well "PJ's room is dirty too!" We go into survival mode the moment we are threatened we threaten back by dragging someone through the mud with us.
Jesus is telling us not to judge, not to drag others down, because as soon as we do our flaws and shortcomings become apparent to those we love and those we judge.
So don't judge, don't be critical or it will come back to you in abundance.
Thanks for reading and have a great day!

skiing!

Wow what a weekend! I can honestly tell you it was one of our better ski trips. We had a great group of kids, no problems, no situations. Other than one kid taken to the emergency room the weekend went smoothly, but it didn' start out that way.
Thursday morning I was in a staff meeting at BGH and I checked my phone messages as soon as I got out. I had a call from a lady at Winter Place Ski Resort, and she told me upon my return call that the hotel we had reservations to stay in no longer had a roof. A bad storm rolled through WEdnesday night and blew teh roof off of it. Yes, here we go another Jeff Gatlin "FIASCO!"
WEll, not so fast with that. We got to upgrade to a much nicer hotel, with much nicer ammenities and even an indoor heated pool. We made the trip up there on Friday, got settled in and hit the pool. Alexa and PJ were especially excited about the pool. PJ probably would have stayed in it all weekend if we had let her.
Saturday morning we got up, went and got all of our rental equipment and off to the slopes they went. Alexa and PJ took lessons with Julie and Ashley. After the lessons we were standing at the top of a small hill where you have to ski down to get on the chair lifts to take you up to the top of the slopes. We were going over our strategy for taking care of Alexa and PJ as Tara and I didn't ahve the money to ski ourselves. WE turned around and PJ was already half way down that hill yelling at the top of her lungs, "Woohooo", and "WWeeeeee!" here we go.
By the end of the first day, I had borrowed Ethan's skiis and boots, hit the slopes with the two of them and they both made it down the easy slopes quite gracefully. All the way down, PJ only fell 3 times the first time down the easy one and Alexa never did.
By the end of the day they were both mastering it and up and down the chairlifts like pros. PJ wasn't allowed to have poles because of her size so she wore herself out having to walk with the skiis on uphill near the slopes' peaks so I loaded her and a few of the others up and took her back to swim in teh pool. Philip decided to lose his balance going down the top mountain, spin around and fly off the side into a huge rock and some trees. I rode with him to teh emergency room, they ran tests, we joked and passed the time. he turned out to have bruised his pelvic bone and no damage was done to his kidneys or anything else.
Sunday morning we got up, got his snowboard back and his boots and he was off and running again. Sunday went much smoother, and we had a great day. Alexa took off at about 10am and didn't show back up to eat until after 3pm. She would catch people and take them out with her, and she went through several different partners as she didn't want to stop. She loved it, was awesome at it and I'm glad. PJ even went down some of the medium difficulty slopes and did well.
So I guess we can pencil them in for next year for sure! haha!
Thanks for reading and have an awesome day!