Category Archives: rants

I Don’t HAVE to, I GET to

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I love my family.

Sometimes they’re difficult. Sometimes they prevent me from doing the things I love to do. But this is all just a part of life, isn’t it? Anything can cause us difficulty or keep us from having fun, etc…

I think I’m learning that when you truly love, you’re choosing to be in pain – as you love. Here’s why:

Love is sacrificial – self-giving, other-oriented, not selfish at all. What does selfishness look like? Putting your desires above the desires of those you love, and when you don’t get what you want, you make a big stink about it. (Keep in mind, love isn’t one-way – it happens in relationship, so both people have to be giving of themselves, and sometimes it works out that someone is sacrificially loving you – you’re the receiver.)

Next, when you hang your heart on the line – when you love – you’re bound to be let down by the people you love. People suck. People hurt the people they love the most. Why? They don’t really do it on purpose. It’s a product of the fact that we spend the majority of our time with the people we love the most. People are prone to act contrary to the way they were originally designed to act (in perfect love).

Now here’s how this post relates to my title:

A selfish man would say, “I have to stay home with my children during the day, so my wife can work a steady job.” A loving man would say, “I get to stay home with my kids…” I’ll be honest. I’m definitely feeling somewhere in between today. Of course, it’s because I’m not perfect and I struggle with selfishness – probably more than the next man! But you can’t say I’m not trying to work on or figure out how to fully, truly say “I get to…”

Also, my kids are cute. Seth in the leaves and Eleanor with wide eyes.

“THAT Neighbor”

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Until recently, I had never heard of someone described as “THAT neighbor” before. I had no idea what the phrase meant. I have since figured it out.

Ironically, the one who first introduced me to the term has turned out to be the purest embodiment of the word’s definition that I have ever encountered. Now knowing the definition, I can say that over the course of my lifetime, I have had several “THAT neighbors”: growing up, the pot smoker next door; the drug dealer upstairs; the video game-playing insomniac raver; and now… well, I’d rather not give a description yet.

Here’s my working, evolving definition of “THAT neighbor”:

Someone who lives next door to you (or above or below you) who habitually, carelessly breaks the spoken or unspoken rules of your neighborhood.

A shorter definition might be much simpler:

“THAT neighbor” = the neighbor that nobody ever wants

Or:

“THAT neighbor” = a bad neighbor

So here’s the real issue at hand: now that we have identified who these people are and what they do, we have to decide how we’re going to deal with, and interact with, them.

The bottom line is this: I’m convinced that God demands of us all that we treat all others with infinite respect, as we would wish to be treated – even when we screw up – because all people are inherently valuable to him. But more than that, I believe that I am personally expected to act with an impossible amount of grace and patience – to demonstrate a level of love that I am incapable of showing to anyone in my own strength.

With great difficulty, I say here: “I love my neighbor.” Now comes the hard part: showing it. By how I act, what I say – both to her and to others about her, and how often I go out of my way to show her that I care.