A Family Affair

It takes her about five minutes to walk the 20 yards to her mailbox with her "third leg" in her hand. That's just one way. It's another five minutes back to the house. She will stop and wave as you pass by. She never complains. She just goes about her life, simple as it is. I'm sure she gets lonely even though she has friends who come by and take her places. I know she wants to get outside and do things in her yard, especially this time of year. But her body will not allow it. So the flower beds are full of weeds which almost choke out the beauty of the Irises as they rise above the thick undergrowth.

I wish you could have seen her. Standing in her door weeping and smiling as families sweated together, got their hands dirty, and laughed while we served.

A few weeks ago I had the priviledge of teaching in our weekend services. I was directed by God to speak on serving your family. It was a real blessing and a great challenge to me personally. God has clearly told us to serve our faimly and make them a priority in our life of serving. One of the things I mentioned in that message was that we should serve our family by serving others as a family. I truly believe that one of the greatest things that we can do for our family is teach them the importance of serving others and about the blessing we receive from being obedient to God by serving others.

So yesterday that's just what we did. Our small group decided that we would work on the yard of the widow woman who lives across the street from me. Another one of the members of our small group lives next door to her and does a lot to help her. So as we were talking about a serving project that we could do as a group, we landed right across the street from our meeting place in the yard of a widow (I think I read somewhere about taking care of widows and how God desires for us to do that.).

No one did it to be noticed. No one did it even because it was "required." It was simply a act of "showing God's love in a practical way." That's what we like to call it around Rock Creek. That's what we believe the church should be. So that's just what we did.

She took about five minutes to get back to her house from the patio where we grilled hotdogs and ate together. She enjoyed her meal and thanked us with a big smile and misty eyes, took her "third leg" and was helped back home.

It didn't take my family long to get back across the street but I pray that the principle of serving others as a family will linger in the hearts of my children as long as they live.