Welcome to the neighborhood #2...or maybe not

Okay.  I lied.

Well, no.  It wasn't a lie, really.  I just glossed over the truth.  Like the lip gloss I wore in seventh grade, I made our neighbor situation look all shiny and lip-smacking good in my effort to overcome the invisible borders that exist from lawn to lawn.

See, I think I know what's holding us back from making friends in this semi-new neighborhood.

It's not that we don't look good.  Nope.  Got that one covered.  Our clothes are clean, hemmed, pressed, hair in place, smiles unflagging.

It's not that our lawn is uncared for.  Uh-uh.  This year we called Chem-Lawn just to make sure we're contributing to the kelly green grass that the neighborhood is known for.  My hubby breaks out in a sweat if he's a day late in mowing.

I'm not kidding about that.

No, it's not what's on the outside.  It's what happened on the inside of our house.

It's the screams that our neighbors undoubtedly heard day after day throughout this year.  This hard, hard year.

See, our oldest daughter -- our twenty-six year old -- is autistic, and this year we had a hard time getting a medication to control her anger.  She would come home from work, get off the bus, walk into the house and start demanding things.  From the moment she got home until the moment she went to bed she was irritable, and most days that irritability moved quickly into anger, loud anger, especially if we didn't do exactly what she wanted to do.  So many days she would scream at the top of her lungs and I would wonder what our neighbors were thinking, and if they were calling the police to come investigate.  Praise God we never got a knock at our door.

But during those dark days -- which have thankfully passed -- I kept thinking, What chance in the world do we have of making friends with our neighbors?  This was going to be our chance at sharing Christ in our neighborhood.

Who knows?  Maybe it's the memory of those screams that are keeping our neighbors at arm's length.  Or maybe God can work beyond those memories and forge great friendships in the future.

I hope so.

We're blessed -- Teresa