A bad neighbor is a misfortune, as much as a good one is a great blessing. ~Hesiod
I long for good neighbors and have been fortunate, but not as close to them as I would like to be. I guess it is just that small town girl side of me. When we first moved to Georgia, the first people we met were our next door neighbors, a family that had moved from the same area of Florida we from where we were coming only three years before. They were good neighbors. When my daughter was an infant, they moved far away to another state.
A newly married couple had bought the house and moved in with their teenage daughters from their previous marriages. They both worked long hours and they divorced about a year later. Afterward, a couple rented the house having his young son and her younger daughter from previous marriages. They were nice and invited us to do some things with them--always spur of the moment and not always something we could fit into our plans, but it was nice to be asked. They recently bought a house and moved.
This left the house next door empty for the summer. The owner had some work done and then put it up for rent through a management company. We live in an area where foreclosures are at a high rate right now. Nearly anyone with decent credit can buy a house and make payments cheaper than renting, so we had concerns about who might be moving in next. I have talked to my Lord about this on many occasions asking for a family with children and even a Christian homeschooling family.
A family moved in this past weekend and my daughter excitedly told me that they homeschool. I thought at first that she had made an assumption because they were not in school on a Friday while moving, but they do actually homeschool! The children are all younger than the Princess, but she loves to play with younger children.
I talked to the mother briefly, asking the typical questions homeschooling parents ask each other, like what curriculum they are using and if they are part of a homeschool group. She said she would like to find a group so I asked if she is looking for a religious group or an inclusive group. She said she was looking for one non-religious but that she was not against a religious group as long as that was not the focus. Then she told me that she is pro-choice and believes that everyone should make their own choices and that is what she wants for her children. With that news, I realized that we might not have as much in common as I hoped, but perhaps the Lord brought them here for a reason. (Actually, I think regardless of how one is raised, each does make up his own mind about such things.)
On another note, we were going for pizza a few weeks ago to our favorite place called the Mellow Mushroom and we ran into a lady. We all looked familiar to each other but we could not place each other. I kept thinking "bank" but I knew that she had not been at our bank. Then it dawned on us all--she was our first neighbor who also had moved to Georgia from Florida. And the bank part? She used to work at a bank and does again. With all her children grown, she and her husband moved back here to be near the daughters and their grandchildren. They now lived in a townhouse nearby. We exchanged contact information and hope to get with them sometime soon.
~ My Lord, create in me the heart to be a good neighbor so that I may be a blessing to my neighbors and they see Your Light through me. ~
