Lessons in Humanity

Wow. So I just learned a harsh and striking lesson in humanity. No really, I learned this lesson about five minutes ago. Granted, it might not seem big because I learned it on Facebook, but it's huge for me. Let me start with a little relevant background, and then I can delve into why it's germane to this blog.

For about five and a half months this year, I dated a very nice boy. He had a good family, he was a loyal friend, he went to church, and he was fifth in his class. On our first date (a while before he asked me out), he told me he was reticent to enter a relationship because he had just removed himself from a romantic situation with another girl who had been an on-and-off love interest for a few months. He told me she had anorexia, and that they had toyed with the idea of dating, which he very much wanted to do, but that in between her stays in inpatient therapy her father did not want her dating. As we got closer to each other, I learned more of this girl's story, and it became surprisingly easy to dislike her because of the effects her relationship with my ex had had on him. When I found out that his older sister was friends with this girl, I must have spluttered for a minute in disbelief. I looked her up on Facebook during our relationship, and it was even easier to dislike her when I saw that she was not classically pretty, and did not appear healthy.

But tonight I got a stunning wake up call that this girl is still human, and what's more, she is one of God's beloved daughters. I saw a video she made pop up in my news feed on Facebook, and out of curiosity I watched it. In the video, she addressed a person who had left a comment attacking her for her weight and/or appearance on her modeling website (she's an aspiring one, and she has wicked fashion sense). She mentioned that she knew that the person was one of her Facebook friends because almost all of her Facebook friends knew that extent of her medical issues, and she asked the commenter to own up to what they'd said so she could delete them as a friend and track their IP address to block it.

Toward the end of the video, she said something that melted my heart to nothing. She said "Yeah, I'm twenty years old, and I'm dying." Throughout all the time I was off dating a boy she'd liked, feeling superior because I was healthy and she wasn't, I forgot to remember for even a second that she is a human being, and one loved more than anything by God. Matthew 7:1 says, "Do not judge, so that you may not be judged..." (NRSV), and in several selections of accompanying exegetical notes it is mentioned that this verse does not mean judicial judgement or forming opinions of people, but rather, hastily and rashly judging a person out of superiority and ignorance. And that's exactly what I did. I didn't know what she was going through or how hard her life must have been- all I "knew" was that she had hurt my ex, and therefore she was unworthy of any more generous opinion than the one I had already formed.

I feel awful for what I've thought and said about this girl in the past year or so, and I'll probably never meet her, so I won't be able to make it up to her. However, this is definitely something I'm going to pray over and take to Confession, and thankfully, something I will be able to atone for sacramentally. I hope the coming year brings the ability for me to right more wrongs of this sort, and that it also brings some healing and health for this girl, who is, after all, my sister in Christ.