JUDGE NO ONE.

This post was inspired by KpaKpando's recent post on her blog. http://www.conclusivebedlam.blogspot.com/ .

It's always easy to judge someone else when its not you wearing the shoes and you don’t know where it pinches. Easy to put on that 'holier-than-thou' attitude and condemn someone else's actions. Also very easy to forget that probably if you were in that person's position you may have done even worse.
No one is qualified to judge anyone, Only God.

Read on…….

Ring Ring Ring
That was my phone.
I glanced to see who was calling. It was J.
We had met at the university though we weren't really friends then, just plain hi hi acquaintances. Later we met again while doing our youth service at the same local government and became quite close since then.

"hello J, what's up?"
"Hi Princess, are u in the office? I am coming to see you"
"Yea I am"
"Ok then see you soon"
"Bye"

The first thing I noticed as she walked in was that she had put on some weight. I hadn’t seen her in what? One month! We hugged and she sat down.

"Nne what's been happening to you now? U added weight o!"
"Abi! I just dey my sister" She replied.

We got to catching up on gists and stuff that happened in our lives since we last saw and that was when she started pouring it all out. I don’t know why but most of my friends seem to confide a lot in me. Some have told me that its very easy to talk to me, some say am a very good listener, others say am very motherly. Na them sabi sha, I guess it’s a good thing to be able to listen and give advice to someone who needs it knowing that they trust you well enough to confide in you.

So back to J. I knew she was in a relationship with some guy she had met recently. The last time we met up she had gone on and on about this new guy she was dating who didn’t like to take her out but preferred she spent all the time in his house doing you know what. I had told her to leave him if she felt he wasn’t worth it and when I noticed her reluctance I asked:
"Maybe he is very good at it?'
She giggled and nodded.
It turned out that this guy was very skilled in the art that is played out on the bed(you know what I mean abeg) and that was why my friend was sticking with him.

I listened to her as she went on. Two months into her relationship with this guy, she noticed that her monthly visitor didn't show up as usual. Thinking that it was probably late due to stress (it normally happened that way for her at times), she wasn’t really bothered until one week turned into two then three, four, five, six. She had even begun to put on weight. Worried, she decided to run a test. Test out. It was confirmed, babe was preggers.

She told the guy and as she feared, Bobo was very reluctant and advised her to get rid of it. Thinking about it then, she realized she didn’t even want to marry the guy so she had to do it. Abort the pregnancy.

She had gone ahead to abort it and feeling very guilty and needing someone to talk to. She headed her to my office to share her story. After listening to her, I told her that even though I have been fortunate enough never to have had one(abortion) in my life, I know it was a hard decision for her to take and all she needed was pray about it and God would forgive her. She was surprised when I said I hadn’t had an abortion before and after then seemed quite withdrawn. I guess she felt I was going to look at her in another light because of what she did and put on the attitude but I didn’t and she gradually relaxed. We talked about other things and she left. Now that was years back and we are still good friends up till now.

Why did I have to recount all that.
Well, the point am trying to make here is that just because I was fortunate not to be in her shoes doesn’t mean I am better than she is or I wouldn’t have done what she did.

When we find others in such situations.
It is always better to think:

"There goes I but for the grace of God."

Have a nice weekend everyone.