Double standards

I hate double standards.  Don't apply something to other people if you aren't prepared to also apply it to yourself.  The mere thought that you have already attained is proof you still have work to do.  Where is the room for grace when all you see is someone's track record?

I am not the most compassionate, gracious person.  I'm the first to admit that.  But I don't want to set my standards so low for others that I just beat them over the head with their past behavior, never expecting them to achieve, mature and grow.  And I pray that's not what people do to me.

I believe it's true, in some cases, that people will never change.  But I do not think it's true of everyone.  It's our jobs to spur eachother on, to sharpen them and help them become their best.  How can that be accomplished if we just expect them to fail?  We all have a past.  We all have baggage. We all have patterns of behavior that we allow to define us, for better or worse.

I hate to imagine where I would be if people had not invested time, love and understand in me.  What if people had just determined that I was a damaged, shy, broken little girl who would never change and they just ket expecting me to stay damaged, shy and broken because that was my track record?  Well, thankfully, I have never been one to fit into someone else's idea of what I should be!

Growth and change are not easy, but it's more palatable when someone comes alongside you, helping to carry your load instead of beating you down, burying you, with it.