The last couple days, I was compelled to walk our dog–I know…somethingi strange is in the air.
Better said, she walked me, as usual. We ran into about five other dogs on the walk, all of whom she was frantically interested in pursuing. She’s a very playful and inquisitive dog, that’s one thing for sure.
We saw a crew of walkers, which you don’t normally see around here.
Several cars passed both days, which meant I had to get everyone off the road, dog, and two kids…the youngest always straggling.
It was a bit tiresome, but the children enjoyed it yesterday, so I thought I’d try again today.
Half-way through the walk,three yippie dogs yet to cross potentially, a golf cart came down the road– odd…usually the golf carts stay, well, on a golf course.
It terrified Daisy Dog. She was about to attack. I sat on her. Sat. On. Her. To make her sit.
It was a grandmother I recognized who lives across the road from me. She was carting three grandchildren for a ride.
She is usually wheelchair-bound, so I smiled largely when I saw her out enjoying the day.
I’ve been praying to know my neighbors more, and was glad to see her out. I’d just waved at one elderly neighbor, glad to see them. We’ve lived here four years, but the way houses are set and the road runs, it’s hard to get to know people unless there are dog problems or kids problems…not the best of fun.
As I approached, she said, “you know my grandkids.”
I said, “yes! Hello! It’s so good to see you! Remember my children?
She said, “Oh yes. They’ve grown! You heard Harold died?”
I said, “No, I didn’t.” (assuming this must be her husband, and wondering how long it had been).
I just got out of the hospital myself this weekend, and he was also in the hospital, and died. I got out to make his arrangements. They are for tomorrow.
“No, I didn’t,” still trying to figure out who ‘Harold’ was while trying to keep Daisy Dog from licking her grand-daughter to pieces.
“Hey! Here’s a lobster!” her grandson yelled, looking in the creek with my son.
She smiled, “Probably a crawl-dad”.
I looked, “Yes, it is, and a large one! This big!” showing her.
We laughed as the boys tried to throw rocks at it.
It was her husband. She’s been in the hospital over the weekend, and so had she. She made it out, but he did not. She got out to make his arrangements. Talk about a weekend.
I went to tell our other neighbor, she knew already and had baked a ham and some bread and taken over. Neighbors are just a good thing to have.
Do you work at being a good neighbor? Do you pray for your neighbors? How so? In contrast, yesterday I was a hardware store and listened to a man’s observations of a “quirky” person he lived near, a leader in the community, but an isolated and apparently very lonely person by his observation who didn’t get out much, never had visitors, and went to bed early…never having lights on that he could see. He spoke poorly of the person and hurt the other person’s thoughts of them. Do you speak well of your neighbors? Do you think you should?
Love a post that makes me want to dig deeper!
I remembered somewhere in the gospels (which I now know it was Luke, chapter 10) where someone asked Jesus “Who is my neighbor?”
Of course, Jesus jumped right into a story — The Good Samaritan, no less!
I think our tendency is to think of our “neighbor” as those that live around us that we are friendly to and are friendly right back. We tend to like to have neighbors that are just like us! We have a whole neighborhood in our community that boasts of having the most members of our church who live there and they love it that way. I know there is a great support system in place because many are of like mind, like faith, like dress, like circumstances.
But when I looked up the word “neighbor” from Luke 10 in Strong’s, the last definition caught my eye: “according to Christ, any other man irrespective of nation or religion with whom we live or whom we chance to meet.”
A long comment to say that this post challenged me to look outside of what is comfortable for me to think of when I think of the word “neighbor.” And if God has me to “chance meet” someone at McDonalds that doesn’t look like me, think like me, blog like me or act like me I need to still consider them my neighbor and cross the road, just the Samaritan did, and love them like Jesus! (Insert Casting Crowns song, here — no, not that one, I was talking about “If We Are the Body!”
Love you to pieces, girl!!
Dori