I’ve been thinking these days about how our perception of people changes when we allow ourselves to get to know them. Prefer to read? The content continues below: I read about a woman who was wrongly convicted of murder and spent a number of years on death row. She said the guards weren’t allowed to speak to her because if they got to know her as a fellow human being it might have affected how they treated her. As I’ve volunteered with ex-offenders and with those in prison, my perceptions about them have changed as well. Whatever poor choices they’ve made, or harm they’ve caused, they are still made in the image of God, and over the years I’ve seen many people become the men and women God meant them to be. When we get to know someone as a person, I think it changes our level of compassion, often in positive ways. For instance, many years ago, when one of my granddaughters was a young teen, she decided to make sandwiches and give them out to the homeless in downtown Toronto. I walke
When we bought our house it was listed as a fixer-upper since it was so long since it had been properly cared for. Once we started cleaning, we discovered many high-end feature that the builder had included, but because of neglect and abuse, it was hard to tell. Prefer to read? The content continues below: The book ‘Misfits Welcome’ by Matthew Barnett tells such a story, about a broken man named Barry. Barry had an abusive childhood. He had been locked away in at attic until he was seven years old, having his food brought to him and being cut off from the rest of his family. Barry didn’t find out until later on in life that he had been hidden away because the family felt disgraced because his birth was the result of incest. As a result of the neglect, Barry was experimenting with drugs by the time he was eleven and became a teen addict. In spite of the drugs, Barry still managed to get a college degree and a good job, got married and had a family. But the drug use continued and eve