Maybe

Lately, I have been seeing things so differently....including my blog.  My original intention was to make it my yearly scrapbook about our lives, our babies, our adventures --- it was going to be all about us.  Yet, in the past few months, I have had the hardest time going back to my original plan after my travels abroad.  Not that there is anything wrong with doing so, I want to preserve our sweet memories as a family, I deeply treasure them.  And it's not that my camera is not gushing with photos of the boys and all of their adorableness! But my heart just hasn't been in it.   

 

Maybe it's because I've been spending more time reading and praying. 

Maybe it's because I've been laughing more than usual.

Maybe it's because Blake and I have been spending more time together at night, enjoying our talks and spending less time with TV & Internet.

Maybe it's because I have so much on my plate with school, moving, & summer activities.

Maybe it's because I feel more content with my life and restless to share with others the One that gives me peace.

Maybe it's because the faces of the world are becoming more and more like faces that could be my children, my neighbors and my friends. 

Maybe it's because I'm reading things like this...

Meeting The Neighbors Next Door

We took a trip today. On a boat made of styrofoam. Then on foot through polluted waters. To a home built on stilts.

Poverty is not merely a physical malady. It isn’t only measured in square feet and dollars. It is an ailment that plagues the mind, body, spirit, emotions and on and on. But for a minute – just a minute – let’s focus only on the aspects of poverty that can be seen. Look at the house again. Just the size of it. The materials. The location.

Let’s go inside. Here’s the kitchen.

Here’s where mom and dad sleep.

The kids’ room.

And the living room.

And the…well, you get the idea.

Now, pretend with me that the family living in this house is not connected to Compassion International at all. The children who live here don’t go to school because the family cannot pay the school fees or buy the required uniform. Even with mom and dad both working the family earns $60-130 each month. They have no health insurance, no church family to pitch in and help out, have never taken their children to see a doctor, and they eat one true full meal every couple days.
And then there’s my house near Nashville.

Our kitchen.

Here’s where Becky and I sleep.

And down the hall, my kids’ room. My son’s bed.

My girls’.

Our living room.

My kids see a doctor when they’re sick. Our pantry and refrigerator are full…and the freezer in the garage. We eat three meals every day with snacks in between. With my job I’m able to pay for all this. We have a church family that comes to our rescue when we need help. We have a pretty good life. Actually, we have a great life. More than we need.

I have to get on an airplane to see children lethargic from malnutrition, houses build above polluted waters, families that earn less each month than the average American spends on soft drinks.

But what if I didn’t have to? What if this poverty wasn’t a plane ride away? What if it was next door?

Would that make a difference? In how I feel? How I think? How I live?

What about you? What if the families written about were neighbors? If you drove by their house in your van everyday on the way to yours? If your kids played in the sideyard with theirs? If when your family sat down at the kitchen table for dinner you could see their place through your window?

If their kids spent the night with yours and you discovered they didn’t have shoes, wouldn’t you give them a pair?

If you noticed the children next door never went to school, wouldn’t you offer to teach them or pay their way?

If you saw their bellies distended from starvation, wouldn’t you invite them over for dinner?

If you discovered they had never heard about Jesus, wouldn’t you tell them?

If these ears lived next door, wouldn’t you give them a flick? How could you resist?

Distance makes all the difference doesn’t it?

God has scattered his gifts for the poor among the nations! (2 Corinthians 9) Some of those gifts are in our bank accounts. In things unused we keep in storage. In cable that can we can cancel, caffeine addictions that we can (maybe) break…

Our neighbors from around the world are knocking now.

Maybe, just maybe..... we love them as we’d love the family next door......

"Every man shall give as he is able, 

according to the blessing of the LORD your God which He has given you."

Deuteronomy 16:17