Today I had another opportunity to chat with my neighbor. We went out again to play in the snow and he was out again shoveling his. We went over to say hi and this time he had some left so I helped him out while our 6 year old shoveled more snow back into the driveway than she did out. In just about 15 minutes of chatting I learned a lot more about him.
Necessary side-note: To be honest, I’m in uncharted territory here and I’m not sure about privacy etiquette on blogs. So from here on out, to respect his privacy, I’ll call this particular neighbor “D”.
If I were just an average stick-to-myself kind of suburbian, here’s what I would never have known. D does not have much to call a life. He once did but went through a bout with cancer. From there, and for reasons I don’t yet know, he lost his wife, his parents, his job, and had to give up a lot of his hobbies. He now has a condition which greatly affects his quality of life. He rarely gets out and rarely has visitors. From our chat today, the guy just wants to feel like he has something to contribute to the world. The one positive is, from what I gather, he’s a Christian or at least has some measure of faith.
So there you have it. These are the people we walk by everyday and pay no mind to. These are the people we look at and make judgments based on appearance. How many more are out there who just need someone to stop and give them some time?
This is a big step for me and my family. Because now I can’t go back. I can only go forward. There are many questions at this point. What does God want me to do? As I shoveled my driveway, many ideas popped into my head as to how I could start solving his problems. I sense God telling me that I don’t need to solve all his problems, I just need to be his friend – at least for starters. He’s not a project, he’s a person.
I asked him if I could just knock on his door any time and he said that would be alright. He has two cats and I’m allergic to cats. We’ll see how that goes. Stay tuned.
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