March 27: Writing Prompt #86-Judgment Day

If you were to judge your favorite book by its cover, would you still read it?

When I think about my favorite books over the years, I don’t always remember their covers, and those covers that I do remember, well, they are are not necessarily all that interesting.  If I really had to judge the entire book by just the cover, then I probably wouldn’t have read even half of what I’ve read over the years.  Heck, if I had to judge a book by it’s first 50-100 pages, then there’s many a book I never would have finished because the cover and/or the first few pages didn’t draw me in, but I learned a long time ago to finish what I start and that the words inside the pages of a book and the lessons and stories to be learned from reading are greater than the sum of the cover or even the beginning of the story.  You have to read the entire thing to be able to make any sort of judgment about it, and even then, it must be tempered with some understanding of where the author is coming from and some consideration of what they are trying to do through their written work.    

So, the point is, as I have said before, God is the only rightful judge of anything or any of us, and we should never judge a book by just its cover. If I were judged that way, then I would have been a very lonely, sad little girl because I was so shy and quiet outside of family when I was younger, and as an adult, I would have had trouble becoming a teacher and a supervisor to others because I would never have had the opportunity to grow out of that shyness, never an opportunity to practice being comfortable in front of others in college classes, etc…because no one would have had any confidence in me, which would have kept my confidence low and turned my “cover look” into all that I’d ever be…no depth inside.  Thankfully, that was not the case. 

Today, I feel lucky. Lucky that there were many people in my life who took the time to help bring me out of my shell, took the time to get to know me, and who were interested enough to open up the book of me and find out what I was all about.  Because of these people, I learned to be the same way with others.  Maybe it was that library work that I started out in as soon as I moved away from home and to the islands…librarians never judge a book by their covers, right?!