We live in a typical Houston area neighborhood with cookie cutter house plans built on postage stamps. The thing that is not typical though is that we have INCREDIBLE neighbors. Several nights a week we will meet in our front yards to let the kids play as the adults just share life together. This is true of most of the homes on our cul-de-sac except for this one family that is irritated by the fact that they have to reduce their speed to drive down our street because of all the children. The wife made it verbally clear yesterday that the speed limit is 25 mph and she will not slow down because this is her street and if she hits a kid, "well accidents happen". You should have been there for that conversation.
Other than just illustrating that she needs help, it also illustrates a much better point. In the book The Life You've Always Wanted by John Ortberg, the author makes the point that love and hurry are incompatible and that if we want to see love grow in our families, we need to eliminate hurry from our lives. I heard a speaker say once that too many of us tell our kids to "come on" or "hurry up" more than we look into their little faces and say the heart changing phrases they need to hear like, "I am so proud of you" or "you have got what it takes". That was a real eye opener and speech changer for me.
I believe it was author Kevin Leman who wrote that he and and his wife made sure their family sat down for family dinner at least twice a week. If that meant that their budding championship soccer player missed practice, then oh well. Moving to Houston culture, adding a child, and taking on the role as Senior Pastor, has added a lot of "hurry" to our lives over the last few years. Trent and I have to work extra hard to not over program ourselves but to make time for each other (which we don't do so well), for quality family time, and for relational ministry like just standing outside in our front yard with a great group of neighbors.
It doesn't do me much good if my pace of life (and rate of speed :/ ) is incompatible with the faith I profess and the transformation that should make me look different than the world I live in. This is a daily struggle for me and I am actually thankful for crazy speedy neighbors who remind of such valuable lessons.
TODAY'S SIDE NOTE:
More fun with Photoshop. This took me less than 2 minutes. I also learned to switch heads between pictures yesterday which takes about 5 minutes. So cool.
4 comments:
so true!!! -shannon
Great post...I think I need to read that book and do a little rearraging of my own 'hurry up' vocabulary!
And it looks like you are having just WAY too much fun with your Photoshopping!! ;) Cute picture!
Hugs,
Tanya
I read this on the right day, I think I told my toddler to hurry up and come on too much :(
Darling picture! Thanks for sharing your story...I realized a few years back that I automatically said "no" ever time the kids asked for something. I started to say yes, to their simple requests like ..."can I do this", or "will you play with me now", "will you help me with something". Instead of the token "In a minute, or no..." it's made a huge difference in our lives.
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