Who are you?

Lisa was loud, could be obnoxious, and talked too much. She showed off quite a bit, but somehow she always seemed so self-concious about everything. It was pretty annoying, actually. Her classmates even talked to each other every now and then about how much she was getting on their nerves. You couldn't sneak up on her with a hug or even poke her shoulder without her jumping. Why was she so nervous about everything?

John wasn't himself today. Or yesterday. Or the past few weeks...or months, really. He slouched around and moaned about everything that went wrong. But when he was in public he'd fake a grin and punch the other guys' shoulders, trying to be so cool, sharing stories of how much he weight-lifted over the weekend. But when he called his friends it was always "I'm such a loser," "I suck at life," "No one likes me." Some of his so-called friends left him in a second if they felt like it. What was this guy's problem, anyway?

Sara went to church on Sunday mornings and nights, Wednesday nights, and all the events. She was one of those Jesusfreaks. Helped at all the volunteer projects, participated in all the missions trips, took notes during service. She was a goody-goody alright. One Wednesday night the youth minister wasn't there, so one of the other youth leaders talked about your average big topics: sexual purity, don't drink, don't do drugs--all that jazz. When the leader started talking about porn, he gave some statistics. When he mentioned a poll taken over how many women had been addicted to porn, the girl sitting beside Sara jokingly commented "Sickos." Sara flinched.

Eliza--she was something. She probably had 50 friends. At least that's what she called them. Most of them were "projects" she was studying, trying to figure out what made them tick. The others were mainly buddies she could text when she was bored. She was cautious about sharing her own personal life with people. But she dated around, usually having a new boyfriend every few months. Most people just avoided her. I mean, she jumped from friend to friend, beau to beau, whatever was to her benefit at the moment. She was emotional and seemingly selfish and she spent most of her time writing or reading or doing something antisocial like that. Why be her friend? She might just leave them behind when it was inconvienient.

Most of the people that inflicted the pain upon these four people were Christians. All of these people are in my real life (although I obviously gave them different names for privacy purposes). But this is what the Christians didn't know:

Lisa was molested by her cousin when she was little.

John had fallen in love (to the point he had her over God), the girl had broken his heart, and he was seriously considering suicide.

Sara had been addicted to porn just a few years ago.

Eliza had been emotionally and (possibly) physically abused by her father when she was younger.

We all have things in our past that we're not proud of, whether we caused the pain ourselves or not. What's great is that it's in the past. Unfortunately, healing from the damage takes time and love that we aren't offering. How can healing come to everyone when we're judging, mocking, and not loving? Maybe if we'd take the time to get to know people we'd better understand why they are the way they are instead of throwing unnecessary stones. If we're called to love, then why isn't healing raining down?