Love your neighbor . . .

Two of the best days of the week for Grae are Mondays and Thursdays.  On these days the most amazing event happens . . . trash pickup.  Grae sits with rapt attention as the amazing gray Harford Sanitation truck drives by and picks up our trash.  His favorite truck in his vast collection is his trash truck. 

As I think about teaching my little man about what it means to love, I think one of the most amazing parts of loving one another is service.  After Shane's forklift job, I was more aware of the blue collar jobs which often receive little notice or thanks.  I am especially aware of this as the men drive by each week to pick up our trash.  What a thankless job, but what a necessary one.  Many of them are someone's daddy  and I thought blessing them would be a good lesson for Grae and for me. 

We woke up last Thursday and made banana chocolate chip muffins and Grae drew a card to thank his favorite trash men.  Unfortunately, my muffins were ill-timed and they came out of the oven 2 minutes too late.  I put them in the freezer in hopes that we could give them to the guys this week.  (It was also a lesson for me on motives,  I was more upset about the muffins than about the lost chance to thank the men.)  This morning, after the huge snowfall, the big gray truck pulled into our neighborhood.  With some quick microwave action and the help of daddy's running feet, we delivered our blessing.  Shane said that the men were very touched and they even blew the horn 5 times as Grae looked on!  He was so excited. 

Our challenge to you is to look for a way to bless someone in your life who probably doesn't get thanked very often.  I think this exercise will be as much a blessing to you as to them.

Galatians 5:14   For the whole law is fulfilled in one word:   "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."