04/12/2015
Loving the Unlovable - Girlfriends in God - December 4, 2015
Dan and I once lived in a neighborhood of predominantly retired people who quickly became surrogate grandparents, aunts, and uncles for our two children since both of our families lived several states away. The one exception was the older couple that lived behind us.
Let’s just say that the Smiths (names have been changed to protect the … uh, innocent) complained about almost everything Southerland.
Our kids were too loud.
Our dog barked too much.
Our friends came too often and were too noisy.
Our garbage can was six inches over their property line.
It was not unusual to find cryptic notes and warnings taped to our front door or wedged under the windshield wipers of our car. I not only considered them to be sandpaper people, but I thought of them as a nuisance as well. Just keeping it real.
In dealing with these neighbors, our children taught me an important lesson about the power of meeting a need in the lives of difficult people. It was not an easy lesson to learn or a lesson I even wanted to learn.
The Southerlands have many family Christmas traditions. When our two children, Jered and Danna, were young, we made Christmas cards for special friends and family members. Since we lived in South Florida, cold weather rarely ushered in the holiday season. I simply could not get past the idea that when Christmas rolled around, the grass was supposed to be brown - not bright green, and the climate was supposed to be cold - not hot and humid. Our solution was to turn the air conditioner on and lower the temperature until the house was cold enough to turn on the gas fireplace. Desperate times call for desperate measures.
We listened to Christmas music while baking sugar cookies and making our special Christmas cards. In the midst of one of those Hallmark moments, Jered looked up at me and said, "Mom, are we going to makethem a Christmas card?" I had an idea who them was, but desperately hoped I was wrong. I wasn't. "You know, Mom, the Smiths," Jered went on to explain.
Being the spiritual giant that I am, I responded, "Son, why would you want to make them a Christmas card? They are mean!" How is that for loving your neighbor? But the Smiths had complained about something we were doing wrong every single day that week, and I had just about reached the end of any patience I had ever had with them.
