The Power of Good

So, you just never know how God will send the chance for healing. I was back out in the yard today and noticed that my neighbor's cherry tree had gotten catastrophically blown down onto their roof. I have had a few issues with this neighbor over my compost pile, and while things have never been ugly, and they've never been unkind to us nor we to them, it has just caused me to feel self-conscious and sort of weirdly, pridefully inferior to them, or allow myself to think they think poorly of me...you know? I struggle with that. It is one of my main mortal weaknesses. I have to fight hard to keep from automatically assuming that people I meet find me annoying and odd and unlikeable. Satan is such a meanie.

Anyway, because of my own insecurities, there's been just a slight pall of awkwardness over us for the last couple of years. Silly stuff. So today, Greg was out working on his poor tree and I perfunctorily offered to help him clean up and he politely refused and I went about my work, thinking that I hoped he was noticing the beautiful compost I was harvesting out of my pile. Then, the magic moment happened: He asked to borrow a rope! It doesn't sound like such a big deal but for me, all the weird feelings I've ever had about them just melted away and all I wanted was to be able to help them out. I felt like such an idiot for being stuck for so long. My theme song could be "Stuck in a Moment" by U2. Anyway, at the magic moment, my pride just disappeared, I got the rope, he used it, I called over a couple times to make sure he was okay when I heard him get frustrated, he thanked me, we shook hands and had a perfectly normal conversation about all the trees we've both lost in the last few years because of tornadoes, hurricanes and now this wind. The last moment was the best--we noticed a little wee tree growing up a foot or two from where the roots of this one came out of the ground, and we discovered that it is a shoot from the roots of our Bradford pear tree that came down a few years ago in the hurricane. His wife had come out by then and she said, "Well, I hope it survives the shock-we'll try to take good care of it." In the mere turn of a single instant, I feel like they're my neighbors now, not just the people who live behind us.

I know God looks down on me sometimes and just shakes his head. Sheesh.