Transparent Christian Magazine

The house next door was only vacant for 3 weeks. I noticed the professional vacuum vans parked in the driveway… Man, those things are loud. The workers were in and out and you could smell the freshly cleaned carpets when the wind shifted.

I saw some people moving in, a few days later, but it was too late to stop by, and I  wondered secretly if they would be good neighbors like the folks that used to live there, or if they would ride their 4 wheeler around the neighborhood at 1:00 am like the last guy.

I said a little prayer, and wondered if they would have children that were the same age as mine, or heaven forbid TEENAGERS with drum sets, electric guitars and bass laden car stereos.  ‘Was I getting old?’ I thought.

On the way to work a few days later, I saw a professionally dressed woman getting in a van with a child around 9 or 10 years old. “Perfect!! I’ll have to stop by and introduce myself soon” I thought.

This weekend crept up on me like they often do, and I was out doing yard work with the kids.  I noticed that the new neighbors were outside too.  Looked like a dad and 2 children; the boy that I saw earlier and a younger daughter that I guessed to be about 5. Kianna (my 10 year old) came bounding towards me and yelled “THEY HAVE KIDS!” Logan (my 8 year old) said “Let’s go meet them dad! Maybe we could bring them some dinner or something”. I told him that we should bake some cookies, and he suggested “Maybe we could bring them over some leftover banana pudding that grandma made”. We started debating the impression we would be making if we delivered a bowl of half eaten, leftover banana pudding and decided that baking cookies would be better as we both laughed.

Logan chimed in again and said “Dad, let’s go NOW!”  I told him that I was in sweats (you will NEVER see me in sweats) and I was a bit disheveled from the yard work.  “I don’t want to meet them right now Logan.”

Logan then looked at his sister and said “Let’s go Kianna.  I’ll knock, and talk, first”.  – Sold! –

They bounded out of the yard and came back with their new friends and proceeded to kick a ball around for 45 minutes until it was lunch time.

I thought about this today, and was laughing at my excuses.

It’s too late…

I’m in a hurry…

I look terrible…

And those were the excuses that I acknowledged.  If I have to be {cough} Transparent… I would have to admit that I wondered if the neighbors would turn out to be odd, or worse, if they would think that I was odd.  I try not to care what other people think… but In this case, that old habit of worrying about the thoughts of others, came back to haunt me.

The excuses not-to-approach my new neighbors came easily.  My kids reminded me that just being friendly is pretty easy too!  I want them to follow MY examples, but in this case, I should have followed theirs!

Jason