Mean People

Don't you think life is hard enough without those who are so willing to point out your faults? Maybe it is because I am pregnant. Maybe it is because I am getting tired. Or maybe it is just that people can just plain be mean and I'm sick of mean people being on the earth. Here is my scenario. I go to church (early, in fact. That doesn't happen as often as it should) and find a bench to sit at that is close enough to the front for comfort because Jack, Emma, and I sang a song today in sacrament meeting. I will write a different post about that...don't want to mix a wonderful experience with this one. There was just an older man sitting in the seat in front of us and no one behind us as of yet so I'm fairly safe. Now I am a seven month along pregnant woman with a VERY active two year old ALL boy and a four year old girl that does pretty well, but by no means sits still the entire hour and ten minutes. I have brought the essentials: snacks, books, coloring books, and even two puzzles today. We made it through sacrament meeting pretty well. Jackson only threw a few puzzle pieces and yelled out all of his animal sounds from his book a couple of times. Not too bad. The woman that had joined the older man in front of me looked back a couple of times while he was saying his animal sounds and I apologized for the volume and she shrugged it off and asked how old he was and then complimented his intelligence for his age. I felt like she was being nice and grateful for a good attitude about a little boy (or so I thought). Meeting is over. I clean up the mess that we are very capable of making in the one hour time frame and head on my way to nursery and primary drop offs. End of scenario. I went to visit a friend tonight to a friend who told me I was brave for sitting next to this woman in church. Not knowing what she was talking about, I inquired and learned that she is quite the vocal woman and is excellent at pointing out the faults of others in the ward (and I also recognize that yes, I am doing a little gossiping and fault pointing of my own right now). My friend went on to tell me that after the meeting this woman came up to her and said she was holding a puzzle piece of ours ransom until we cleaned up the mess that we made during the meeting (which I thought I had done). Apparently, we left our wipes, program, and a few crayons under the bench. This IS my responsibility to clean up after myself. I really thought I had cleaned up my "mess", but since I can't breathe because of the basketball that knocks the wind out of me when I bend over, I admit I did not get on all fours to look every direction for traces of Hardy. I'm so guilty. This didn't bug me at first when she told me. I think I'm pretty good at letting things roll off my back, but unfortunately, I allowed myself to stew. So this is what I have come up with. I need to take responsibility and take an extra step to take care of the Lord's building. I need to be more forgiving, also. I just have such a hard time with those who are so quick to pawn judgment off instead of think what they could do to help. It is not her JOB to help me, but we are at church....ya know? Once again, I am guilty of this also, in a different way. I just want to remind myself and others of things such as the idea of being a Christian (since we ARE at church). What if she had recognized the load that I had and thought to wonder what could be done to help instead of finding a missing puzzle piece and refuse to give it up until further notice? What if I never clean up my mess? Does she knowingly keep the puzzle piece and feel guilty of stealing? I know that's stupid, but as I'm typing this I'm really thinking about what I need to learn from this. Which leads me to the next point. Whatever happened to wisdom in old age? I have heard many times from those who have been around longer than myself how you learn to not judge so quickly because everyone is dealing with something in their life you don't know about. My mom tells me how she loves being around rambuctious little ones now because it helps her remember those days as a mom that she took for granted. If you choose to post on this...please help me see something positive that I can learn from this. I don't want to harbor angry feelings at some woman I don't even know. She actually probably does have a lot of wisdom at her age, but still has things to work on like the rest of us. I am sick of mean people. I see no sense in knowingly saying something with the intentions to hurt someone else. But sometimes, being the blunt person I can be, I also tend to hurt others feelings even when I don't realize it. So I should cut some slack there, too. Oh, the things I learn as life goes on...