Daily Living

We’ve been living in our neighborhood for over five years now, and I love it. God knew exactly where to plant us so we would grow.

This neighborhood is made up mostly of families with children and 3/4 of these families are Christians attending the many many churches we have in our town. On any given day in the spring, summer or fall you can look outside and see children playing up and down the street. Girls playing jump rope and hopscotch, boys riding their bikes and playing guns and swords. You’ll also find adults gathered  on the sidewalks, alleys, driveways and streets, chatting away.

We watch out for each others kids in this neighborhood. I can stick my head out the door and tell “little Johnny” that I know his mother doesn’t want him to do whatever it is that he is doing. Likewise I can know that other neighbors are doing the same for my children. I occasionally get a phone call telling me that one of my children has fallen and is on his way home crying. Of course, most of the time I can hear them coming.

I have Moms call and ask me if they can give my children a Popsicle, or some juice or cookies. Since our children have many allergies, I’ll find our youngest son walking home with a big empty container of juice or Popsicle so I can read the ingredients and see if he can have it. Then he’ll walk back and tell his friends Mom, that his Mom checked the ingredients and he can now have the popsicle or the box of juice! How awesome is that? Everyone here knows not to feed or water our youngest son without checking with me first, so they go out of their way to do something like this.

We also help each other out quite a bit. For instance, if someone needs to borrow sugar, eggs, milk(well they know not to come to our house for milk because of our dairy allergies), they can call or come over anytime. Let’s face it, as Moms we don’t always have everything we need to cook a meal, or sometimes we run out of a certain ingredient.

I can also call on my neighbors to cry on their shoulder, or have them rejoice with me over something, or vent when I need to. We have all done this many times.

Thank you Lord for planting us here.