Like A Good Neighbor

I’d describe it as darling, really: older, funky but fab two bedroom town house, in the ‘right’ part of town, affordable rent. Cozy (read ‘tiny’) living room, efficient (‘minuscule’) kitchen. Decorated with period furniture pieces from the 1800’s – stepback cupboard, jelly cabinet, sideboard. Warmed up with a collection of antique copper, vintage over-sized candlesticks lining the steps. What’s not to love?

It’s the perfect situation for a young married couple just starting out.

Perfect if it weren’t for the fact that my husband and I just celebrated our 40th wedding anniversary.

This is not where I expected to be four decades later. Sometimes life flat out kicks you in the butt. Luckily I have ample padding there, but I’ve still got some colorful bruises to show for it. Ouch.

So I try not to think about the house I left behind and I’m working on that ‘being content in every circumstance’ thing. One good thing about where we live – it sure is easy to clean!

But honestly – my heart has not been into hospitality much since we moved in. If the real meaning of hospitality is ‘loving strangers’ I’ve got some work to do before I invite them in for a cup of tea.

The first night we spent here, one neighbor pounded on our door and demanded we move our car because we were parked in his space. This despite the fact that there are no assigned parking spaces. No ‘hi, welcome to the neighborhood’ from this guy.

At least the lady on the other side of us was friendly. She even brought me cookies one day and left a thank you note on my door after I’d taken her some coffeecake. Then I accidentally parked in ‘her space.’ Friendly neighbor turned into neighbor from hell with flames shooting out her ears.

I think I liked the concept of being neighborly better when I was on a half-acre lot. This whole ‘near-dweller’ thing leaves a lot to be desired. Sigh. Just being real. 

Yesterday my ever-observant good friend rather annoyingly reminded me that I hadn’t blogged in months. “Yeah,” I replied, “writing about hospitality is a little too painful right now.” Silence and then she said, “Write about the pain.”

So here I am, dumping the bucket of pain about losing my house onto the page and wondering who would ever want to read it. And then I ran across some statistics: Bank repossessions increased 11% from the the month of November and are up 5% from last year. Good ultimately for the housing market but not so great if, like us, you can’t get the bank to budge on a loan modification. We had an additional complication to the cumbersome, maddening process: identity theft on our 2010 tax returns.

Here’s the thing about that kind of identity theft – ain’t nothin’ you can do about it until the IRS clears it up and until it’s cleared up the bank won’t talk to you. As far as they’re concerned, you don’t exist. Unfortunately I started to believe it. It felt like my real identity had been stolen.

For a while there (until, oh, I don’t know…Sunday?) I forgot who I was: child of the most high God, forgiven, free, saint, redeemed, daughter of the King. God, my valiant warrior, had  somehow neglected to scoop me up when he went riding off to do battle with the forces of evil. Perhaps he didn’t see my laying there bloody and wounded. After all, my identity had been stolen. Maybe he didn’t recognize me as one of his own?

It’s hard to keep fighting when you feel like God isn’t fighting for you behind the scenes. I felt abandoned and developed a spirit of fear.

The enemy zoomed in for the kill.

It felt like someone was holding my head under water. I couldn’t breathe, kicking and flailing, I guess I started to believe that God was the one responsible.

This despite the fact that my life verse is Psalm 18: 16-19: “He sent from on high, He took me; He drew me out of many waters. He delivered me from my strong enemy, And from those who hated me, for they were too mighty for me. They confronted me in the day of my calamity, But the Lord was my stay. He brought me forth also into a broad place; He rescued me, because He delighted in me.”

God is the only one I know who could look at stubborn, thrashing, doubting me and call me ‘delightful.’ What a sense of humor he has. A couple of years ago I wrote a little song with these lyrics:

“I will laugh in the face of adversity,

I will scoff at the devil’s wiles.

I will say “Ha ha ha!” to the enemy

For I am Abba’s child!”

I haven’t lived up to these lines too well, but as they say in the South, “I’m fixin’ to.”

I am His and He is mine and He is with me in this little doll house of a home and it’s going to be alright. 

Just realized my neighbor lady hasn’t been going to work lately. Wonder if she lost her job? Maybe I will take her some cookies. Like a good neighbor…..

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