I have been in many situations where a person’s outlook on me was different than the outlook I had for myself. Trying to prove to someone that you are a good person can be very tiring, you lose sleep, and you wonder constantly trying to come to grips as to why they feel that way about you, especially if they really don’t know you. You try to find ways to make amends with ONE person whom may have a misunderstanding about you – BUT what about the other 7 Billion people in the world whom are doomed to have the same misunderstanding about you – What are you going to do, Chase them all down……I think not.

In my life I have been misunderstood, judged wrongly, not liked too much, called stuck up (in which I have no idea as to how they could come up with that analogy), I have even been judged by others concerning the relationships I’ve chose to nurture, everybody has an opinion and while they smile in your face on one hand, you find out that they are saying other things about you on the hand. The thing is people will be people, everyone has a thought or an opinion as to how you should run your life, raise your kids, whom you should and shouldn’t date, where you should go to church, where you should work, what kind of car you should drive and even about your choice of residence……with so many opinions it’s easy for us to get sidetracked and on the race of “WHY I DID, WHY I SAID, WHY I MADE THAT CHOICE & WHY I’M JUST BEING ME” If we’re not careful and I have been here many times before, we lose sleep, we lose weight, we lose our sanity and even lose focus trying to please people and be whom their thought of us should be……

About three years ago I had an instance of this sort concerning my son, at the church I once attended we were getting ready for Christmas Cantata and the kids were going to do a song/skit for the program. While my son was standing with the kids in the choir another young man started kicking him, well he told the young boy to stop and to his surprise – he didn’t. My son told me about it and being the mother I am, I just told him to look over it and move over a little, maybe they were standing too close – Well when they went back up to continue to practice, the young man continued to kick my son, Once practice was over we went in the back for refreshments and my son ended up sitting by the young man and his sister, the young man became rude and began to act unseemingly, (inside story, my son told the young man that his sister was cute and that’s what made him act out even more) I finally told my son to stay away from the young man and to leave him alone, We already had the issue of him kicking him and I really didn’t want him to get involved with anything else concerning him, I honestly thought that by telling him that, it would resolve things, I didn’t want to discuss the matter with anyone because children are children and they do tend to act out when a parent is not around, but in the midst of me telling my son to leave the young man alone, a church member came into the dining room – catching the ending of that sentence, went and told another church member that I told my son to stay away from the gentlemen. Of course I was called to the carpet and was told through someone else that my behavior was out of order and that I should not be speaking that way to children, they stated that they were trying to draw people to the church and didn’t want to run people away. So according to them the language I used was uncalled for, I immediately was accused of not being “church-like” I was wrong and that is not how church people were supposed to carry on, WHAT??

They took the half-truth of someone else and ran with it, they didn’t know of the events that happened prior but at that time it became of no concern, I was being judged on what I said and the verdict already had me looking very GUILTY! My integrity was challenged, they weren’t thinking of all the other good things I had done, said or given; NO, right now I was rachid, thoughtless, careless and downright wrong. REALLY?? What I didn’t understand was, why was all this information being related to me by someone else, I immediately became sad and disappointed because all my life I had been judged in some type of form, way, shape or fashion, it’s amazing no one remembers the good somehow as the negative always has a domino effect of coming in first place in every circumstance.

I lost sleep over that incident, I immediately began to think of the many situations I could do to make it right, I didn’t mean what I said – IF only they had gotten the full story and maybe it was my fault as I should have told someone what was going on with the young man and my son prior to this fault, then maybe none of this wouldn’t have taken place – But I was just trying to be the PEACEMAKER in the situation by trying to figure out the right way of dealing with my son and this negative situation. Now I’m being viewed as a NON-CHRISTIAN! 

I said that to say many times our character is tested, our integrity is questioned and our motives will be judged but you can’t help, neither do you have control over what people may say, think or perceive about you, There’s no need in chasing down an untruth and forget the notion of trying to get people to see you in a different light – While people are people and they will talk, criticize, judge and perceive what they want about you. Just remember one thing:

THEY DID ALL THAT AND THEN SOME TO JESUS FIRST!!

There’s a song by Vickie Winans that states, No Cross; No Crown, the song goes on to say if you can’t stand to be talked about sometimes, if you can’t stand a little disappointment sometimes, if you can’t stand being talked about sometimes and if you think you should always be up and never down – No Cross, No Crown – Must Jesus bear the cross alone?

We all will be misjudged sometimes and our identity will be compromised but if Jesus could endure it then so can you, by acting out and chasing a misconception down to prove you are not like what’s being said or misconstrued about you is saying you are better than Christ or Well that was in Jesus’ Day – He has no clue about LIFE today…

Trust me my friend, the same messed up people that was back then, is still the same people today – the clothes and time century may have changed but God is still the same. The bible says that there’s nothing new under the sun – so everything that happened back then, is just a repeat of things happening now.

Keep being you, you can’t chase a lie – PLEASE DON’T TRY! That LIE will always run into the TRUTH. So keep your cool, keep your sanity and just know if they talked about Jesus, they will do the same to you – HE ENDURED and has now given you the POWER to ENDURE! Even more than he did.

Continue to let God work in your life and let people think what they want to think and perceive what they want to perceive because their thought of you (which is what it is) will outweigh the TRUTH you have about yourself any day. Don’t compromise your character instead STAND STILL and watch God turn that THOUGHT into the TRUTH.