A Lesson Learned

I still need to post pics from IN but something that happened yesterday has been on my mind and with Christmas just a few days away - wanted to share this. We live in a world that is very different from the one my parents grew up in. A very cynical place where you can't trust anything or anybody. Where this past week after the Mitchell report, one famous ballplayer insisted that another needed to prove he DIDN'T do something (whatever happened to the presumption of innocence - how well we know!).
Last week we went to IN. I purposefully didn't have my mail held since I had asked my mom to check it for Christmas stuff, bills etc. She checked it a couple days after we left and there was no mail. This continued for the entire time we were gone. I was getting quite upset about this since I had no idea of what was going on. We thought maybe our mailman had held it noticing that we were gone (even though they aren't supposed to do that). We arrived home and Tim went to check at the post office. They had none of our mail there but thought that our mail man might have it on his truck. TWO pieces of mail arrived that day (it was now 12 days). The next day - nothing. Tim went to try to track down (literally) our mail man. Then I noticed something strange. Friday is our trash day and we had put our trash can out. I heard the truck and got up to pull the can up to our house when I saw our neighbor from across the street (the same one who stood and just watched while we were moving in with the help of 3 trucks and 4 vans and about 25 of our friends "Exactly HOW MANY people are moving into that house??!! he asked Tim!) pulling our trash can to the side of the house. Hmmmm! I called Tim and told him what I saw "Do you think...???". He went over to our neighbors and sure enough - he had collected all of our mail - bundling it nicely for us. He told Tim - well you told me you were going to be away and to keep an eye on the house - so I did. We still had the rental vehicle that we had taken to IN and he had actually walked over and written down the license plate because he was concerned that someone was in our house that wasn't supposed to be! It's weird now days to have neighbors that watch out for you - that care enough to collect your mail and even write down license plate numbers. But we have neighbors like that and we are blessed! This man doesn't attend church or claim to be a Christian but he exemplified what it means to BE a neighbor to us. I have really been struggling lately with a desire to BE the church - not to DO church anymore. Ty memorized the verses that talk about "when I was hungry - you fed me" etc (thanks to Mr. Bruce and Miss Karyl!). Those words have resonated with me more and more. I want to be a part of a congregation that serves Christ by serving people - anybody know where I can find one of those?! A few weeks ago at Common Grounds Cafe' - we served our first homeless person. He was probably 70+ years old and rode up on a rickety bike carrying all of his possessions. He walked up slowly and just stared at the muffins and said "Do you think I might could have a muffin". I anwered "Absolutely!" and Steve (the guy helping that day) said "Could I get you a cup of coffee to go with that?". I am sure that some people were concerned and not happy (or would be if they had saw). And I know we need to be careful but I am more concerned that people aren't BEING the church anymore - just content with DOING it. My family has experienced the "fellowship of HIS suffering" this year in a very small measure and we are doubly blessed because of it. We can't be Christ like without understanding sacrifice and suffering too. I think my "resolution" for 2008 is to stop "doing" and start "being". I hope that yours will be too.