Judge not

Lately I have found myself looking at others and judging them in a sense and I don't really know why. It's awful and hurtful, even if the other person doesn't know. I have no reason to judge them, I don't really know them and I don't know what they're going through. Case and point:

1. The other day I came across the blog of a guy that I knew of through friends. It had a picture of him and his wife and a little girl. I knew there was no way he could have had a kid that old. With that, I assumed that she was probably one of those girls that messed up. You've heard the expression about assuming right? Yea, it's something about a donkey. You can look it up if you don't know. Anyway, I started came across another blog which happened to have this same girl on it. The more I got reading, the more I realized that she wasn't one of those girls like I knew in high school. She had been married for a couple years to her high school sweetheart in the temple and he went in to the police force. When the little girl was just 3 months old, he was killed by a drunk driver on his way to a call about a shooting. After a few years, she remarried the guy that I knew of.

2. There was a girl that I played basketball against up here at school. She was a good player (and absolutely gorgeous.. of course) but she seemed so full of herself (I had legitimately spent some time with her and got this vibe). She was also a world traveler. Her dad was an FBI special agent and they lived all over Europe, Asia and Africa. I recently came across her page on Facebook and saw that she was married. I was looking through her profile pictures (and coveting her beauty) when I came across one of her dad. People were saying they were sorry for her loss. She had a link to his obituary. Evidently he was an amazing athlete and did amazing things but he had suffered from cancer for years and had lost his battle with it just months before she got married.

After each of these events I felt so awful. I couldn't believe I would let my judgment cloud the type of people they really are. I have no idea what they have been through or the person they truly are. The one girl I had never even met before! I find myself more and more trying to give people the benefit of the doubt. I have no idea who's judging me or thinking negative things of me, but I know it would crush me if people who know me or even don't know me had these thoughts. I then came across this quote from President Uchtdorf:

He couldn't be more clear of what he wants. This resonates with me so much. I will continue to make a valiant effort not to judge people because you never know their story.