These are my thoughts. You may disagree with them. You are entitled to your opinion and I am entitled to mind. I will respect your views, please also respect mine.

As the contentious election draws nearer and nearer, I see so much negativity all around. People are suffering because it’s just a lot to handle. Families and churches are fighting. What for? Is it really worth it? I see Christians using Scripture to back up their opinions on both sides and it’s easy for people to feel lost and alone.

This isn’t the way it’s supposed to be. Just let that sink in for a minute. It’s not.

I’m going to talk religion here for a bit. The number one thing we as Christians are supposed to do is LOVE! Love God with our whole hearts, and then to love our neighbors. Not love our neighbors that are good people. Love ALL our neighbors. I can almost here the objections piling in. Love our selfish neighbors? Umm, yep, now let me explain.

Loving someone doesn’t say becoming friends with them or breaking bread with them. It doesn’t even mean we have to try to persuade them to our views of things. Loving someone means treating them with dignity, as a human being created in God’s own image, even if we are arresting them or holding them accountable. So for example, I can abhor someone’s views and still love them by removing them from my life if need be, but not calling them names or talking about them behind their backs, etc.

We’re fighting about masks and about politics and people are making it about who is a better person and they are justifying their own unloving and degrading behavior towards others because they hold their positions to be morally superior!

But have some of you fellow Christians asked what Jesus would actually do if He were here on Earth today? I have. I’ve seen some people say Jesus would wear a mask and I honestly don’t see why? If a masks purpose is to protect others from the wearers germs, why would He need to wear one? He healed the sick, did not spread disease. And we know that He couldn’t GET sick from anyone else! Don’t think that means I’m anti-mask! Hold on a minute!

As Christians, I believe we should feel compelled to do everything we can to protect life and the sanctity of it. We are not Jesus and are not immune to catching or spreading the diseases of this world! So I believe in some situations it IS the right thing to wear a mask. But everyone has different ideas of what those situations are.

The issue has become so heavily politicized and I see so many Christians acting like Pharisees, putting on their masks when no one else is around them and posting pictures on social media just to show how good they are. They complain loudly on social media about those who don’t wear a mask and blame them solely for the spread. God sees their hearts.

I have a son who is too young to wear a mask (and good luck keeping it on him even if it was recommended, I can’t keep a hat on his head when it’s 40 degrees out). When we go indoors, my family physically distances from strangers to prevent the spread but that didn’t stop me from getting mask shamed by a woman who I never got within 12 feet of. And I’m not the only one this has happened to.

Suddenly, having children that 100% comply with the mask requirements is a sign of being a good parent. My girlfriend witnessed me carrying out my 4 year old literally kicking and screaming from a store on vacation because she just would not wear the required mask. I guess that makes me an abysmal failure as a mom because Karen’s two year old is trained to wear his perfectly.

Kids are kids. Sometimes they make us proud and other times they are embarrassing the heck out of us. There is also a full spectrum of children with conditions like ADHD or autism to sensory disorders for which complying with the mask mandate may just be impossible.

I also know medically fragile adults that are not supposed to wear a mask yet do because they don’t want to face all the hate.

We should all do our part to not contribute to the spread of Covid 19. Understand that this may look quite different for some people than it does for others. Be loving. Question your own heart and what’s really driving the bitterness beneath it.

The media is pitting us against each other. We have this 24/7 news cycle that is constantly telling us to hate. We don’t have to abide. We can again, question the feelings of our own hearts when we start getting angry at a group of people for whom our views differ. We can listen to the other side instead of talking so much.

My son cut his upper lip a few weeks ago and it looked really bad so I took him to the ER. He was SCREAMING the entire time we were there, and wouldn’t let me set him down so he was screaming right in my ear! As the doctor was trying to talk to me with his mask on while my toddler was screaming in my ear, I couldn’t get anything he was saying and I was pretty close to tears myself! When he left, I was in the room with the nurse and I was trying to listen to her and my son kept angrily pulling down my mask. I looked at the nurse as I kept trying to fix it and apologized and she smiled at me with kind eyes and said “don’t worry about it. I don’t care if you have your mask on right now, you are dealing with a lot!” And she saw me as a human and she saw me as a mom and this is why I love nurses.

Jesus ate with the most obscene of society and was hated for it. Because the religious elite at the time couldn’t stand His message that the content of their hearts was of more concern than the things they did. And a dirty sinner that knew he was a dirty sinner and needed saving received the bigger reward than the religious elite that did everything right but was arrogant and had hate in his heart.

What’s in your heart? Are you contributing to the hate and negativity in the culture or are you giving out love and grace? I know I need to be reminded constantly of what my priorities are which is why I have to value reading the Bible and hearing the Word over reading the news.