Mariah.

This week, God gave me a friendly reminder.
Our school hosts "preview days", where prospective students come to campus, visit, and spend the night in the dorms with a host student. Last week, my roommate and I hosted a visiting student and we had signed up to do it again a few days ago. Thursday night, as the high schoolers began to arrive, I was on the look out, watching to see who I was going to be paired up with for the next 12 or so hours. It was then that I noticed her.
She was making her way down our hall, struggling with a garbage bag full of bedding and a small, shabby betty boop suitcase. She was tall, not wearing nice clothes, and her hair was disheveled. Between her stature and her several bags, she seemed to barely fit into our small dormitory hall. I must sadly admit, as I watched other girls, more fashionable, more friendly, more confident, making their way into rooms, that I hoped this ragged girl was not mine. And, as often happens with God, I got just the thing I thought I didn't need.

I met her outside our door, already feeling ill at ease. She quickly admitted this was her first time to be away from home, that she was only 15, and if she began to cry she was sorry. My heart sank a little as I anticipated the long, awkward night ahead. She came into our room, garbage bag and all, trying in vain to keep her small, worn glasses on her nose. She looked around, obviously unsure of what to do. My roommate kindly instructed her to set her bags down, to make herself at home. I sat in our little room, listening to the laughter and shouts of other girls, thinking this was just my luck. Based on her appearance, her mannerisms, I figured that this girl was probably not coming to my school, that this night wouldn't matter, that she would not fit in here anyways.

That's when I paused...
I quieted the judgmental, unkind voice that had been monologuing  in my mind for the past ten minutes and in the quiet that ensued, I was able to hear a much softer, gentler voice.

Who did I think I was?
What kind of person am I to assume an attitude of superiority and dislike to a person I did not even know? What, in my mind, qualified this girl as unworthy of my attention, my time, my love?
She is certainly worthy of God's. Am I to believe, then, she is not worthy of mine?

I was, and remain, embarrassed, disappointed in my self, ashamed of my constant inability to see people as God does. Do I really have prerequisites for those broken, hurting hearts that I will love? Do I host an election for the people I will show God to? This idea, of loving only those who I deem acceptable, counteracts any message of Jesus' that I hope to show this world.

Throughout the night, I came to learn more about this girl, began to peel away her layers of nerves, to understand her heart, to hear her story. I discovered that all her movements were labored, that she couldn't look anyone in the eye, was because of a car accident she had been in.
She had spent the last two years in a wheel chair, finally getting out this summer.
She had lost both of her parents in the past year.
She was betrothed to a stranger in Puerto Rico.
She marveled that my roommate and I had our own dishes; cups and silverware.
Yet,
She had a beautiful laugh.
She had dreams of being a singer.
She was open and sweet.

As I lay in bed that night, this girl who had seen so much hardship laying on the floor next to me, I reflected on my instincts to judge. I felt that this probably happens more than I realize. But I don't always pause. I don't always allow God to speak to me in the quiet. I pray that my attitudes, my desires, my actions will be transformed, that Jesus would saturate this life in love. That I will not reject anyone and will strive to show the grace and love of God to all people.
He didn't leave anyone out.
Then how can I?

Something to think about.