Navigating the Stillness ....: Love Your Neighbor ... Part One

Recently, we watched a movie on Pureflix called 2nd Greatest. It's based on a true story and takes place in Golden, Colorado. The movie depicts how a pastor, a police officer, and a homeless man come together to help a neighborhood on the brink of being demolished, forcing all of its occupants out on the streets.

**Disclaimer: We recommend Pureflix and this movie. It is similar to Netflix, however, it is a Christian owned company that promotes family-oriented, faith-based movies.

We absolutely LOVED this movie and, at the end of it, one of the kids said "I really loved that movie!" To which I abruptly blurted out, "We need to do more than just love it --- we need to DO it!!"

Guess what, friends? We are doing it!

At the time that we planned this ... the correlation hadn't really crossed my mind. When we watched the movie, I still hadn't really thought of it this way, but after we've been DOING it for a couple weeks now, I had a flashback, and I just knew there was a story to tell!

So, hold on ... this is gonna be long, but it will come in parts, okay?

It's a really good story; at least I think so.

Mark 12:30-31

And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.’ The second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ No other commandment is greater than these.”

In September, 2000, Brian and I, along with Olivia, Ben, and Jake, moved into our first house together. We had been married for a few months by that time but we were crammed into my apartment that I had been living in in Lake Geneva. Moving into our house was super exciting!

We lived in the house for four years and then we sold it to move to Elkhorn. Our house had been on the market for only a short time and we had an offer we were willing to accept. We were really excited! Then came the knock at our front door.

I was the only one home at the time but I was much more eager to answer back then so I opened the door. Standing there was a couple, a man and a woman, who said that they were very interested in our house. Most people would probably say, "Oh, you know, I'm sorry, ... you didn't make an appointment and well, we've already got an offer on our house ... so ..." and why bother, right?

Well, I'm not even sure why, but I said something like, "We already have an accepted offer on the house, ... BUT PLEASE, come in and I'll show you around." And I did. I showed them everything and talked their ears off, I'm sure ... telling them all about the place, how old it was, about the newer addition to the house, about all the projects that Brian had done, etc ...

It must have sounded too good to be true because then they asked, "So, why do you want to move?"

I told them the truth ...

... and here it is:

Our Church.

At the time, we were very active at the church we were attending. We were there several nights a week as well as the weekends. It was a lot of driving back and forth. The house we were moving into was sort of just offered to us on a whim, during casual conversation with its owner who we happened to know well. So, just like that, we were moving to be closer to our church.

This must have sounded odd or interesting or curious because they proceeded to ask more questions ... about the church and the activities we were involved in ...

By the end of the conversation I really liked these people (their names are Dawn and Andrew) and by the end of that evening I was praying to God that the offer on our house would fall through so that these people could buy it instead.

Guess what?

The first offer on our house DID fall through and these new people were able to buy our house. But even better than that ... they started going to our church. They came to know the LORD and got SAVED... did you read that?? They had gone to a church prior to moving to Lake Geneva, however, they discovered that they hadn't really understood the truth about Salvation. We became friends. We participated in AWANA club together. Brian and Andrew taught Sunday School together.

Can you believe that?

A family came to know Jesus and became stewards of His service ... all because of a house.

Well, time went by and Dawn and Andrew moved on to another church and we didn't see them as regularly. Our friendship faded and life just sort of took us in different directions.

Last fall, Dawn posted on social media something about starting a bible study. I sent her a message asking her about it. I was at a point in my life where I really needed something like this ... outside my home ... with other adult women. I knew I was going to have to make myself do this.

And I am so glad that I did!!

Throughout the weeks that I had been going to their house, I took note of the condition of the porch. Late spring, I decided to ask about it and they relayed about how they've been wanting to get it re-done but the city with all of its rules and the various contractors with their ridiculous estimates with open-ended totals ... it just wasn't something that they could work with.

I asked if it would be okay to mention it to Brian and they said it was okay.

So, he looked at it and he thought about it and he knew what needed to be done. He said that if they were okay not going with a contractor, we would do it ... all of it ... and they would only need to pay for the supplies.

So, two weeks ago, we started "The Old, Old Porch Project ... Remove and Rebuild" and when I say "old", I do mean "OLD". The house is over 100 years old. We're not sure how old the porch is but let's just say it wasn't exactly up to current codes.

First, the porch had to be torn down. This was what we call the fun part! Going off on an object without having to worry about breaking it ... well, that can be highly therapeutic!