What if you don't love your neighbor?

The Bible says to love your neighbor as yourself.  First of all, I would never wish that on anyone.  I tend to be self-critical, a tad condemning and typically lack self-compassion... so, I strive to love my neighbor as I should love myself and I am also hoping to be a little kinder to myself too.  I truly want to live out this Biblical command in a literal and tangible way...but I caught myself today, Day 13, dragging my feet on my act of kindness for the day because I do not really loooove my neighbor.

Since nobody really speaks hypothetically, I am just gonna shoot ya straight.  My neighbor swears all night long and she drove her car into her own house, hypothetically speaking.

I so desperately want to be the kind of woman who can't help just lovin' on people.  I try, I really do.  I am friendly and I try to have conversations and I have offered to help with her son when she is running late getting him off the bus.  But, if I am being really honest... I judge her.  I am so ashamed to admit that, but I do.  I judge her parenting style, her phone conversations (which I can hear loud and clear 22 hours a day) and I judge the number of horrible things she says in front of her child.  I am not the kind of woman who just loves on someone until they soften and change... I am a wicked, judgmental woman.  Surprise.  It's so sad.

I have this internal battle with people like this... I genuinely want to love them and soften them and I want to walk through life with broken people, ministering to their souls.  But, on the other hand, I also kinda want to slap broken people, because they are usually breaking someone else in the meantime.  Sometimes I wonder if I had a bit more self-compassion, and was less critical of myself, and if I chose to view myself through the lens of grace... that I just might be a little less judgmental and more gracious toward others.

So, I brought some apple crisp.  I brought it over to my neighbor and it was well received and that's really where it all ends.  I hear no swearing tonight, so I am gonna believe that my apple crisp was ministering to their marital souls and that they feel loved by the wicked witch to the west.