THOU SHALT NOT JUDGE

While in Tijuana, Mexico on a humanitarian expedition I supervised 45 volunteers from various universities and families. On the first day, I noticed this tall male college student. He had long hair to his shoulders and was rather quiet. I immediately thought he might be rebellious and I had concerns on how the week would go. He willingly took on the work assignments for his group. The cutest girl there sort of shined up to him. I ,again , could not reconcile how this beautiful girl could team up with this long haired guy.

Later in the week I visited one of the work sites and found these two working on building a fence. I talked to them and found out that both were returned missionaries. Long hair????? Returned missionary???? It just didn’t compute. While visiting them at the work site a little Mexican boy came up and begged for money. This long haired returned missionary dug into his pocket and gave the boy a few pesos. Again, this action just did not compute with the long hair. How could this be?

After we returned to the USA, I got to meet the mother of the beautiful volunteer. I found out that the two were now planning a temple wedding. Wow, long hair and a temple wedding??? I then had the courage to ask the mother of the bride about the long hair.

She then told me the following story. Upon his return from his mission his mother was diagnosed with cancer. She had to go through radiation and chemotherapy. Knowing that his mother would loose all her hair, the returned missionary decided to grow his hair out so his mother could have a wig. He did and she got the wig. Well, before we went to Mexico, this great young man found out that his aunt had the same cancer and treatment. His long hair was now going to be used as a wig for his aunt. Oh how small I felt. I had misjudged this good young man strictly on his appearance.

THOU SHALT NOT JUDGE.

Gordon Carter