Little Blue Butterfly

Ahhh, the joy of traveling and taking photos of butterflies that we don't have in our part of Florida.  While driving up the Blue Ridge Parkway we saw quite a few of these beauties.  What a wonderful drive!  I could stop where I wanted, wander and take photos, return to the car, and drive further up the parkway.  Stephen napped while I wandered.  We were both happy with the day. 

After returning to the hotel, we downloaded images from the camera, edited this photo, and went to sleep in a quiet air-conditioned hotel room.

The next day we visited a temporary butterfly exhibit at WNCWild, drove a short while, and checked into a hotel. After uploading this photo, placing it on facebook to ask someone to identify it (I left my book at home), we headed out on foot to buy supper. Life is good ... other than one grumpy hotel clerk, it had been a great few days away from the farm.  Butterflies or something butterfly related was in every single day.

Then - we decided to buy supper across the four-lane road.  We went to the light and waited for the light to change.  The red hand was up - NO WALK.  The light changed but the hand stayed red.  The light changed back and still - NO WALK.  In four light changes, never did the light tell us that we could walk so we walked as soon as the light changed and we knew it was safe to walk.  The 'walk' light was the one that didn't change; it was broken.

A truck was waiting to turn when the light changed and as it drove past the passenger rolled down his window and yelled out, "You're supposed to wait till YOU have the signal to walk".  Stephen and I knew that we did the only thing we could do unless we went back and took the car.  We walked when the light had changed and didn't jay-walk. The only problem was that the 'walk' light was red.  The passenger in the truck was misjudging us because he only saw us for a minute - not the 15 or more minutes we were at that light waiting for the hand to turn green. 

Stephen commented to me that it ought to teach us a lesson about when we judge others.  We don't know their whole story.  Yes, there are times we know someone else made an inexcusable bad decision.  But more times than not, we can't know all the facts that lead up to decisions that others make.  Sometimes we can't know everything that leads to us making our own decisions, let alone other people's decisions.

It appeared that Stephen and I were being rude.  Instead, we were simply dealing with a broken electrical switch (or something along that line).  What the passenger didn't realize was that we were well aware that they were waiting to turn and we moved as fast as we could so we wouldn't slow them down more than a few seconds.   Appearances can be deceiving!

Now I wonder about the hotel clerk - what caused her to respond the way she did to us?  Did she just lose a loved one?  Did she and her boyfriend just break up?  Did her child become ill?  Did she fail a college test?  Whatever caused her to react as she did isn't my business.  My business is to pray for her.  We hope that others pray for us when we're short with them as we should be praying for her.

Stephen and I hope we remember this lesson and apply it in our lives - remember that we don't know the facts in situations. Things are happening of which we aren't aware that cause people to make the decisions they make.

John 7:24  (Jesus was talking.)

"Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment."