Judge not that ye be not Judged

I want to write down an experience that completely changed the way I look at life. To me this was a life changing experience, but it could have easily been something that just passed me by.
When I was the Primary Chorister in our ward I decided (with the approval of the Primary Presidency and the Bishopric of course) to start up a Children's Choir. One of my most favorite sounds in the entire world is the sound of children singing, and I felt as though I could teach these kids more about music if we had one. There was a mother in our ward who approached me and asked me if it would be alright if her son sang in the choir. This boy was known throughout our ward as being the loudest singer and completely tone deaf. She said that she was hoping that maybe I could help him and that she would be willing to bring him to choir practise early so that I could work with him separately. I told her that, of course, I would LOVE for this boy to be in our choir and that I would love to work with him to see if I could help him a little bit. So, week after week this boy came to my house early to practise singing with me. I made him the choir president and explained to the other children that the choir president has to come to my house early before the rehearsal to set everything up with me. None of the other kids even knew what we were doing before choir. They just figured he was coming over early to help set up.
Well, the day of our performance arrived and I had all of the children sit in the choir seats for the entire meeting. I had things for them to do (word searches from the Friend and such) and they all sat very quietly and didn't talk. Then when it came time for us to sing, they all got up together and walked into place in their lines and sang the song beautifully. To me, the song was perfect. This little boy was still quite a bit tone deaf but he had improved dramatically. I couldn't have been prouder of my little choir, and especially of him. I told all of my choristers what a wonderful job they had done and then I pretty much forgot about the whole thing.
Well, our ward music chairperson always makes sure that she sends a Thank you note to everyone who performs on Sundays. It is a really nice gesture. I opened her note and I read it and tears came to my eyes. She had thanked me for the wonderful job that my little choir had done and she had remarked on how reverent the kids were in the choir seats and how perfectly they had performed. Then she said that it was too bad that this little boy was in my choir because otherwise the song would have been perfect.
That broke my heart. How could she say that? Didn't she realize how hard this boy had worked and how much he had improved? Then the thought came to me. . . is this what the Saviour thinks whenever I am being judgemental?
Yes, this experience has changed my life. It isn't anything dramatic, but it made me realize that instead of looking at someone and passing judgement, that maybe I should just take a minute and look at the big picture. When I hear a screaming child in sacrament meeting am I annoyed at the parents for not taking them out, or if I look closer will I see that it is the child of one of the members in our Bishopric and his wife is completely frazzled because she doesn't want to leave her other young children in sacrament meeting by themselves? When I smell the stink of cigarettes on someone at church do I assume that they have been smoking or do I stop and realize that they have just worked the night shift at their place of business and they have come directly to church without going home and sleeping?
It's not easy to not be judgemental of other people. I have had to work on this really hard, but I can now say that my life has been better because I do try to not judge others. In fact, it really gets me frustrated when I know that other people are being judged for something that others perceive to be wrong. We do not have the right to place judgement on others because we do not know what is happening in their lives.
Why am I writing this post you ask? Well, probably because my experience happened almost exactly 3 years ago today.