Saturday, January 22, 2011

I guess sometimes Jesus wears polyester shorts

How do I make seeing the light of Christ entertaining? That's what I've been wrestling with in my mind all night and all morning. I can't just say "When we moved here, we basked in the light of Jesus" and then stop. No one would ever read this blog again. I can't even say "and he had a white beard", because most people imagine Jesus with a beard, and so it's still not funny. How about this: When we moved here, we saw the light of Jesus and He was wearing polyester shorts. Also He was a woman with red hair (who we'll get to on another day).

After we closed on our house but before we had left California, Tommy had the brilliant idea to call our one and only neighbor, ostensibly to introduce ourselves, but really because we were scared that the reason our house had been on the market for so long was that it shared a fence with some kind of psycho, like an axe murderer or an amateur metal-band guitarist. Much to our relief, the littler white house is owned by a single, retired army officer who does genealogy reports for families and is the music director at his church. He told us that the storm door on our house was broken and that there were a lot of walnut trees. Whew! Another bullet dodged! And we would have been perfectly content had it ended there, but it didn't.

Flash forward to Mike Tyson-punches-you-while-you're-in-labor-and-have-food-poisoning. Here comes Gordon, his elastic-waist, polyester shorts neatly pressed, white beard trimmed just so, his arms filled with love and kindness. The minute he got off the phone that day with Tommy, you see, he started collecting things for us- event calendars, family activities lists, local newspapers, coupons to nearby restaurants. In another basket was a coffee mug filled with Hershey's kisses and mints and a wooden pen that he had carved by hand after he found out that Tommy was a woodworker. And rolled up neatly with all the other goodies was this amazing list that he had put together just for us, filled with all his trusted service-people and friends, in case we needed anything when we arrived.


As you can see, this beautiful list has been used and abused and loved and is still absolutely indispensable to us on this journey, all because of the kindness of a stranger. And to top it off, as if all that wasn't already enough, we found out that he had his entire congregation praying for our safety and happiness as we drove our silly selves across this great country. Hundreds of people that we didn't even know had been thinking, hoping, praying that we, a little family from California who they might never know would make it safely to our new home. The light of Christ shown brightly on us that afternoon and we knew everything would be okay.

13 comments :

  1. I wanna hear about Jesus as a red-haired woman.

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  2. What an amazing neighbor, Dwija. Very Promethean of Tommy to call him ahead of time. You were in God's hands before you even knew you needed his cell number!

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  3. How cool is that!? I love it when "nice" people really are NICE PEOPLE! Hope our new neighbors are equally as nice....though we aren't making as spectacular of a move as you. ;D

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  4. Seriously, if our entire family didn't live here in So Ca I would be looking for another house to buy in your area. How awesome is that to have neighbors like yours. My new next door neighbor is psycho (should have met with her before we bought the house) She kindly gave us copies of the HOA newsletters for the past 2 years complete with highlighting of key issues that we might be interested in like kid noise, kid vandalism problems, and dog issues. A few weeks after moving in I was pressure washing the stucco, cause that is what neglectful homeowners do, and got completely yelled at by her because about 6 tiny leaves, presumably from a tiny bush in our yard had fallen onto her red woodchips. I looked at her and said, "They're 6 tiny leaves" She yelled back that "The objectivity of the woodchips is to be red and your leaves are hindering my quality of life." I got yelled at once again a few weeks later because a shovel was resting against the side of our house in the backyard and it was also hindering her quality of life. Most days I long to get out of this stifling suburbia but after all the work my husband has put into the house he isn't going anywhere for awhile. Enjoy your good fortune!

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  5. Oh my goodness gracious, Jenny. That is craziness! I just read your comment to Tommy and he was dumbfounded. He said he would line up 30 shovels along the wall to repay her for her kindness ;)

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  6. That almost made me cry. What a guy!! Your neighbor is a keeper for sure. It would be nice if everyone still did things like that.
    Moving on to read about red headed shorts woman, Jesus.

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  7. I got tearey eyed reading this, I love the midwest, we have some of the nicest people here, who sight unseen will help you when you need it most.:)

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  8. What a sweet old man. Our retired from the Air Force old man neighbor is like that too. The first time we met him was when the city sent me a letter saying I had to cut down a tree that was an obstruction to traffic or else I'd be fined. I didn't have a saw so I went to ask him if he had one, he didn't, but he offered to go down to the mayor with us because he thought it wasn't right and the mayor is a friend of his. Small town people are great.

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  9. Dweej, I'm just now starting from the beginning. (You're only 30?! WTF? I think the 5 kids part threw me. That and brilliance like yours usually comes from (older) age.)

    I love this post so much. And i want to hug your neighbor's neck and then take notes on how to be more like him because he's awesome. But you're awesome, too, so it's only fitting that you'd find each other. :)

    Off to read some more...

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  10. Uhm.hold on a minute...I can't see the screen and a need a tissue...

    Amazing. I'm touched. Completely touched. Proof that you were meant to land in that place. I love this post!

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  11. Same reaction from me...all teary-eyed. I hope this neighbor is still good to you. We love our neighbors and feel blessed to have them.

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  12. wow that is a good neighbour! Our neighbour came to meet us a week after we moved in, told us our dam was saline, our rainwater tanks were containminated with peacock poo and our dog looked sick. We've got used to him now though...

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