I was in the airport in Los Angeles on Sunday, standing in line for coffee. Cause that’s what I discovered you do in LA! That gave me plenty of time to study people. One woman stood out to me. She must have been in her late 30s or early 40s. In her hair, she was wearing a headband with large, blue flowers on it.

My first thought was to wonder if she realized she was too old for such things. Headbands are for little girls, not for grown women. I stood there and watched her and judged her.

And then, I had a horrible realization.

The headband was for her cochlear implant. She wasn’t wearing it because she wanted to make a fashion statement. She was wearing it because she was deaf and it helped her to hear.

I’ve written before about how judgemental people without kids with special needs can be. And they really can be. What do they think of me helping my almost 16-year-old in the bathroom or wiping her nose or holding her hand in the parking lot?

But I’m far from perfect. That sin of judgementalism haunts me as much as it does people without kids with special needs. Right there, I had to repent.

How many times do we rush to judgment before we get the entire picture? How many times do we ridicule people in our minds? Each of us, even those of us with family members with special needs, need to stop before we even think. Before we think ourselves superior to others.

And God put me right to the test. By the time I boarded the plane home, there were only middle seats left. The hands of the woman beside me were covered in band-aids. During the flight, she peeled them off and picked at the scabs. And this time, I only felt compassion for her, for her obvious mental illness.

Dear Lord, sometimes we rush to judgment before we know all the facts. Help us instead to have compassion for those who may be different from us. And forgive us for the times we look down our noses at others. Amen.