Judge Righteously

Alma 41:14 

"Therefore, my son, see that you are merciful unto your brethren; deal justly, judge righteously, and do good continually; and if ye do all these things then shall ye receive your reward; yea, ye shall have mercy restored unto you again; ye shall have justice restored unto you again; ye shall have a righteous judgment restored unto you again; and ye shall have good rewarded unto you again."

Questions to myself:

1.  Am I merciful to others?
2.  Do I deal justly with others?
3.  How do I judge others?

Last Thursday, I was called to the office by Bingham principal.  My daughter Mele Vasiti stole a phone.  Apparently a girl forgot her phone on the lunch table and Mele took it.  Instead of returning it to the office so they locate the owner, she gave it to her friend Neni, to go and reset the phone so she can use it.  She threw away the sim card and boldly intent on keeping this phone for herself.

So many things ran through my mind after I hung up the phone with the Principal.  "What was she thinking?"  I can easily go in the office, punch her face first or beat the hell our of  her.  This is our typical Tongan parenting reaction to mishaps like these.  But Mele was already weeping on the phone when the Principal put her on the phone to talk to me and I felt her guilt and shame was punishment enough for her.  Plus, taking away her IPOD and sabotaging all Social pages like InstaGram and Snapchat. 

My husband always tells me that I am too "NAIVE" when it comes to my perceptions of people.  To me, all people are genuinely good.  They just make bad choices but that doesn't mean they are bad people.  Sometimes, I don't understand why some people do the things they do.  Sometimes our predicaments leads us to make wrong choices.  I understand that.   I want to give people a benefit of a doubt and not judge them but comprehend them.  Be more tolerant, kind, forgiving and understanding. 

I am a firm believer in what goes around comes around.  I know that when we do good unto others, that it will all come back to us ten times over.  The Book of Mormon teaches us that the Lord's ways are perfect and just.  That He forgives when we repent and that He loves us unconditionally sinless or sinful.  That God is merciful and He provides a way to Atone us.  He gave up His only son to the ways of the world, to be tortured and hung on the cross that we he may purchase us with His good grace so that when we REPENT of the things we do wrong.  We can be as clean as snow once again.  To me, this is Mercy.  This is Just and that with HIM, we're always being JUDGED RIGHTEOUSLY. 

The Long Pause

This is exactly what happens when we fall off the band-wagon with reading our scriptures.  The whole family go haywire.  At first, the family scripture reading goes, then I struggle to hang on with reading here and there at work.  Then it completely comes to a halt.  Yes.  We are on a HALT position and it is a dangerous position to be on.

It's been months.  Very rare and far inbetween the times that we make to read our scriptures.  Add to that my second job and it's pretty distant from the last time we read together.  My day starts at 5 with delivering kids to work then  coming home at 10pm from the end of my second job.  I have my Book of Mormon in my work bag.  Now I need to making some time in between calls to read my scriptures. 

So, tonite at my second job.  I will try to get back again.  At least with my personal reading.  As for family reading, I need my husband to step up to the task as he is the Mr. Mom of the family now.  We've definitely miss reading together as a family and the children are rotten without some scriptures in their lives to remind them and keep them on track with what they are suppose to do.