love your neighbor | Sherri Woodbridge …from my heart

I could hear the familiar sound of the stroller that carried my neighbor’s granddaughter. The plastic wheels turning round and round over the pavement, crunching rocks underneath. I heard the familiar sound of the metal gate open and close. My mind drifted back to my work until I heard it again. Strange. They are right out front and no one is talking. Very unusual.

I continued my work and heard the stroller begin rolling again, away from the house, the opposite direction they usually walk.

Everything’s weird today, I thought and kept working.

After a few minutes, I heard the stroller returning. Crazy.

It stopped out front again. No voices. No Bella saying ‘Hi Grandma’. Strange. Then I heard a loud ker-plunk and got up from my desk and went outside.

There in my yard, was my neighbor’s autistic son, making a rock border around my flowers with river rocks he had been carting back and forth in his small, plastic garden cart. I stood there at the top of the steps and wanted to cry.

I had recently read a book about fundamentalists in a certain religious sect and it really bothered me to think how cruel and messed up we can get, all in the name of who we believe our god to be. How hurtful and mean, deceived and destructive we become and we call it love or enlightenment. How absurd. How sad. Only despair seems as if it could live in a lie of that magnitude and despair is exactly what I read about on those pages of that book.

I admit that it was a ‘downer’. While it moved me to be thankful for a God who doesn’t condemn or deceive, I have to confess that I began to question whether I believed what I believed merely because someone told me that was the ‘right’ thing to do and that’s how I grew up. But—that’s not how I grew up. Yes, I was taught right from wrong, to be and do good and what that looked like, I didn’t meet Jesus until I was twelve when a dear friend who I thought of as my second mom told me about Him. I fell in love with this man who miraculously came to earth to set me free for eternity. No one forced me. No one told me it was the ‘right’ thing to do. I knew it in my heart.

However, after reading that book, I questioned whether I had gotten caught up with a fundamentalist belief in a god that was nothing more than other gods created by man. I despaired. I felt lost and then realized what was going on. The enemy is sly.

In the midst of my despair, however, I asked God to show me that there are decent people in this world that know He’s real. That know He is there for them and won’t lead them astray.

My neighbor told me a story the other night about her son and the case of the $25 Swindled Dollars. Seems her son did some volunteer work for a neighbor who is somewhat senile. He claimed that the boy swindled him out of $25 outrageous dollars to move some boxes and cart some stuff around and do some other stuff of which I cannot recollect. That’s not important. What matters is that this man went to another man two streets over and voiced his disapproval, not realizing that man #2 and his wife were friends with this boy in question and his family. The wife of man #2 relayed the conversation between man #1 and man #2 to my neighbor, the boy’s mother, who then asked her son about it.

Now, I don’t know everything there is to know about my neighbor’s son, but I have watched him. He would never do that and told his mom so, even though she knew the answer already. And yet, he took $25 of his earned money mowing lawns and asked his mom to go with him next door to the swindler accuser. When he answered the door, this is what was said…

“Mr. Jones (name changed to protect the guilty), I want to apologize for making you feel that I unfairly took $25 from you and want to give it back.”

Imagine a stunned face.

The conversation continued. “Well son, I don’t know adults that would say I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say.”

The boy responds… “You don’t need to say anything. I just don’t want there to be anything between us, because that’s what Jesus would want.”

I should have told you to get some Kleenex before you started reading this. I apologize.

So, as I stood there at the top of the steps, I remembered that story and as I watched my neighbor’s son doing what I can imagine Jesus doing and building a border with rocks for my flowers, I was overwhelmed with gratitude to a God that doesn’t leave us in despair but who rescues us from the pits we find ourselves in and uses the least likely means… a young man with a plastic garden cart who just wants to love like Jesus.

Chip Ingram gave a sermon once (or two or three or 4 times) that was titled, “The Best Advice I Ever Took”. It consisted of five relevant pieces of wisdom, which he considered life changing. They were (if I remember correctly!):

Do your own dishes
Write it down
Do it now
Set your alarm
Take out the trash

Doing your own dishes meant: clean up after yourself; leave things better than you found them; and, do not expect others to clean up after you – clean up after yourself.

Write it down: Lists, calendars, journaling – they all have a purpose. To keep you on track, focused, and mentally healthier.

Do it now: Don’t procrastinate. If something needs doing, there’s no better time than the present. Don’t allow things to pile up – materially or emotionally. Take care of things when they come up and don’t put it off.

Set your alarm: Start the by putting God first. Begin by setting your alarm five minutes early and meet with God. Second week – ten minutes. Work your way up to thirty minutes of quiet time with the Lord. Be on time.

Take out the trash: You are a temple of God. We are to glorify God in our bodies. If there are things that dishonor him (the thoughts we think, the words we use, the bitterness we harbor, the things we view, the things we listen to – whatever grieves His spirit, whatever trash exists in our life – take it out. Get rid of it.

These are five pieces of advice and wisdom that were life changing to him and if you know anything about Chip Ingram, you know he is a man after God’s heart and has been a vessel used by the Lord through which He has changed thousands of lives.

I was thinking about these five points the other day (I’ve personally listened to this message countless times to refresh my memory, for if taken seriously, they are life-changing for everyone), and wondered what five pieces of advice I would take from my life experiences that would be notable enough to share with someone else. The following is what evolved…

Dance with your children. When my first son was born, I was getting ready to leave the hospital and the pediatrician came in for a final check on his newest patient. He sat on the edge of the bed and said, “There will be a lot of folks who will have a lot of advice to give to you on how to raise this boy. Some of it you will be able to use and some of it you will listen politely and need to let it go in one ear and out the other. The best advice I can give you is to dance with your children.”

I took that literally. I danced with my oldest son, my daughter and my youngest son. We have giggled, and laughed, and on my son’s wedding day, I cried. I have danced my kids to sleep and soothed them when they were sick. Those have been some of the best memories of not only my life, but also my kids’ lives.

Bloom where you are planted. I have been in situations that were tough. I have moved to places where I didn’t necessarily want to be. However, if I truly believe in a sovereign God, then I will believe that wherever I am, whatever I am going through – God has me there for a reason.

Sometimes we are in a place we don’t want to be whether emotionally or physically. We can complain, fight it, or we can bloom. A plant does not bloom until it has been planted, taken root, grown a sturdy, strong stem and branched out. We will not grow either unless we ground ourselves in the soil of God’s word, take root in its truth, grow strong in faith and branch out – reach out – to others. That is when we bloom. When we do bloom, we are beautiful because of the grace of God and leave a fragrance that others are drawn to… the fragrance of God.

Steven Curtis Chapman wrote a song entitled, Bring It On. Bring it on is a ‘male’ version of saying, bloom where you are planted. The chorus states:

Bring it on!

Let the lightning flash,

let the thunder roll,

let the storm winds blow,

let the trouble come,

let the hard rain fall,

let it make me strong . . .

Bring it on.

Nothing happens to us that is not approved by God. Therefore, there should be nothing to fear, nothing to dread. That is so much easier said than done, however it is true. Yet, we do fear, and we do dread, and we do worry and get anxious because we are human. However, God is there to go through it with us, to make us stronger, to make us purer, to perfect us.

The soil we are standing in may feel like quicksand, it may feel like clay or rock, but I have seen many flowers come up through the toughest terrains and surrounded by gravel, rocks and the scorching heat of the sun, they were absolutely beautiful. So, wherever you find yourself… bloom there, where God has planted.

Don’t look back. We can easily be caught up with regret. We wish we had done this or wish we had not done that. We wish we had gone here or had not gone there. We wish we hadn’t said that or wish we could take that back. Regrets, one after another. The past is a tricky thing. It can be full of wonderful memories. It can also be full of memories that haunt us for a lifetime. What can we do?

Don’t look back. Paul says in Philippians that all of us who are mature in Christ (and isn’t that what we, as Christians should desire?), to press on in our lives – forget what is in the past and strain toward what is ahead of us.

We spend so much time looking back. It does not do us any good in our Christian walk to live in the past. Christ is waiting ahead of us, not when we look back. He is coming for us in the future, not in what has been. Turn off the tapes that hold you back. The tapes of regret that go around and around in our minds and play repeatedly. Record some new ones that tell you it is time to move on. It is time to lift your head, look heavenward with joy, and… press on.

Eat dessert first. I like this one because it frees your spirit. It is a grace inducer and it allows you to realize that life was not meant to be a list of rules. Sure, there are rules and laws – commandments even – that we should obey for the good and protection of humankind, but God loves through grace and not a thick book of rules and regulations.

A few years ago, my husband and I were driving to Canada for his aunt’s funeral. We had driven all day and had not stopped for anything to eat so we would not be too late in arriving at the hotel. When we did arrive, I was really hungry. We walked over to the restaurant next to the hotel and sat down. The waitress came for our order and I asked how long it would be before dinner would come since the place was extremely busy. When she said about twenty minutes, I asked if I could order dessert and get that first.

Now, I could have waited for dinner without starving to death. We, as Americans, tend to exaggerate our hunger anyhow and most of us do not truly even understand what it means to starve or be ‘hungry’. However, I was… hungry. However, that was not the only reason I ordered dessert first. I had never done that before. I was 45 and finally rid of guilt over certain things and was finally testing my wings.

How many times did your mother tell you not to eat something because you would spoil your dinner? We have learned and perfected how to take those tidbits of instruction and turn them into lifetime laws that strangle our joy and riddle us with guilt when we have disobeyed them. That is not how God intends for us to live. Yes, He laid down the first laws – the Ten Commandments – but He did it for our protection. He told us not to lie, steal, and covet for our own good, not because He didn’t want us to have fun. He knew the consequences of what could and would happen if we committed adultery. The commandments were given for our protection. To love Him with all our heart and soul and mind would keep us from straying from Him and falling to temptation and regretting our choices.

The pie and ice cream… eating dessert first. It was grace. Defying guilt and manmade laws. It’s a wonderful thing.

Love your neighbor as yourself. I have to confess that I did not really grasp this until a few years ago, but when I did, it was life-changing for me. Christ was (and still is) pretty wise.

It is nearly impossible to love someone else unless you have learned to love yourself. When you do love yourself, you have a joy that cannot be quenched because you are content with who you are. You like yourself. When you do not have that attitude, you can feel like no one else likes you and it is a downward spiral. When you are content with who you are, you are content with most every other area of your life and if someone else does not ‘like’ you, you move on and don’t allow it to become an issue. You can love someone else without conditions because you have learned to love you. You’ve learned to be easier on yourself. You have learned to forgive yourself and believe that God made you for a purpose and God does not make junk. Love yourself first and you will love your neighbor without a problem.

Five snippets of advice from life. You can take it and use it or listen politely and let it go in one ear and out the other. It won’t bother me. I’m busy blooming and dancing with my granddaughter.

Sherri Woodbridge …from my heart

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That’s What Jesus Would Do

**Five Snippets of Advice