My Little Man

It's funny how a little kid can change your thinking so much....

My 8-year-old, Josh, and I were talking today, and he said, "Mommy, the mean neighbor was outside and I said hi to him, and he said hi back to me."

Now, I don't even really know this "mean" neighbor, so I can't say that he is really mean. I do know, however, that he and his wife have not exactly been the most gracious to us or to my other neighbors. I seriously have not spoken more than 5 words to them, and we moved into our houses on the same day almost 4 years ago! And I can honestly say that I have tried to break the ice, but for some reason they just won't cave.

Anyway, a few months back, the guy yelled at Josh to get off of his lawn. Josh came and told me, almost in tears, and of course, my maternal instincts kick in and all I want to do is give this guy a piece of my mind. Well, those of you who know me know that it has to be reallly bad for it to come down to that. I told Josh that the next time he did that to come talk to me instead of picking on an innocent kid. Needless to say, Josh has been really careful not to step foot in his lawn again since.

But today, when he told me about saying hi to this neighbor who almost brought him to tears, an enormous sense of guilt rushed over me...It does say in the bible to love your enemies...pray for those who persecute you...etc.. And I realized this is the best way to put this into practice. But instead, I said some not so nice things and wrote them off on my "who cares" list. And this right in front of my impressionable child.

But God gave him a good heart, and apparently I did something right. It's amazing to see him growing so much, and all the hard work to teach him to do what's right is paying off.