Crawl Before We Walk from the Writing Collection of Linda Bates Terrell, USA

Crawl Before We Walk

If you seen a man walking down the street, and he had no shoes upon his feet. Would you surmise he was homeless, and had made too many poor decisions?
If you seen a man dressed as a dirty and poor a beggar, and sitting all alone. Would you surmise he was down on his luck and hand him your last buck?
If you seen a woman with 7 or more children out on a stroll. Would you believe she should have used more birth control.
If you seen a staggering man in a sailor uniform, and dirty. Would you assume he had been in a bar room brawl?
If you go to fish, do you cast your line into the deepest part of the lake? Would you assume that in the deepest spot is where the biggest fish would swim?
If you stood in the grocery isle and seen a woman with little money, trying to pay for her few groceries. Would you offer her some assistance, or assume she was purposely being annoying, and gripe because the line was moving way too slow?

Maybe as the sayings go, "We should look before we leap, crawl before we walk, and never judge another least we be judged!"


For if you seen that man on the street with out any shoes, did you stop to think, to some less fortunate one he may have given his?
And what if the man that looked as poor as any beggar, was just a weary man that had worked two jobs to pay the past dew mortgage and the hospital for his wife's surgery, even though she never made it, or that he had been to proud to have taken any help back then.
And as for the woman with 7 children strolling along. Did you stop to think she might have lovingly adopted each and every precious one.
As for the sailor staggering dirty down the street. He may have been a tired volunteer fireman who had just saved a strange child in a local fire.
And maybe, could that woman in the long grocery isle be using her last dime, just to buy groceries for a desperate elderly friend.
As for that biggest fish, you were so positive was swimming in the deepest lake water, you never thought that he might swim near the edges, every now and then.

During life sometimes we assume, we surmise, we even second guess on occasion events or even something that just occurred. God would teach us that we should think of others to be thankful and always forgive, not to judge, share before we save, and cry before we rejoice. For even as Gods children we all fall short. And he would always expect for us, as we daily grow, to always crawl through life... long before we walk.

Linda Bates Terrell
December 21, 2011

corrected spelling errors March 7, 2012