Thou Shall Not Judge

It's actually a lesson we ALL need help with.....like OVER and OVER again.

But 2 days ago when I received a bag of my favorite chocolates wrapped in a newspaper w/ this paper attached to it, it reminded me just one more time..........."Thou shall not judge"

When I saw the paper, I knew immediately who it was from because he always signs his papers like this.

Let me backtrack a little.

When we moved to here it was........well.......challenging to say the least.

Brooks had to work back in our old town for a month, while I was here in this cochroach-invested, filthy-never-been-lived-in-for-2-years house, pregnant and w/ 6 antsy kids and a dog.

My neighbors came over and introduced themselves and they were nice. 

One man, who lives right next door to us walked out, smiled and introduced himself as "Bruce" in this BOOMING voice (think the voice from heaven in the movies). He had a long Father-Time-like beard and really one of those men you would probably steer clear of if you were walking down the street. Bruce was nice but then said, "Keep your dog inside or in the backyard because I don't want her scaring my cats".

"Okay"......easy enough, right? But we actually spent a LOT of time outside because I didn't want to be IN my house and plus our air conditioner didn't work. My dog stuck close to me because she didn't know what think of this place either!!! 

WHENEVER I happened to leave Sally (my dog) outside, I would get a phone call from Bruce within 2 minutes telling me to get my dog inside.......even when she was in our own yard......because she MIGHT scare his cats who happened to ALSO be in my yard. 

Dogs have to be on a leash if they're outside and cats don't..........so in his logic, cats trumped, I guess. Plus he told us, we're just renting here and we're just temporary and they were permanent and the cats have lived here longer then we have, so they get first dibs, basically.

It was SO frustrating, because I really was quite SCARED of this man. 

On the other hand, I REALLY had my plate full at that time. And if the kids left the door open and the dog went out to pee, I was scared to death of the immediate phone call.......like he was just watching until I messed up or my dog did. 

Finally one day I came home and there was a message on my machine from Bruce, in a not-so-nice voice telling me my dog was barking outside in the backyard and I needed to let her in or something like that. I called Brooks who was 3 hours away and said I was done and I'm tired of his phone calls and that I'm creeped out.

Brooks got Bruce's number and called him up on the phone.......father-bear style.

He told me after that he was just ready to tell that guy that his cats STINK and we're tired of them climbing into our basement and up our vents and why do THEY get to roam and not our dog and leave my wife alone.........

So when he did call, Bruce immediately started letting BROOKS have it and right before Brooks was going to take his turn he had the thought (the Spirit told him) to tell Bruce "sorry" and that we would be the BEST neighbors this guy has EVER had.

Brooks was thinking "WHAT?!?!?!" but he followed the spiritual prompting that he had.

Next thing Brooks knows, BRUCE is apologizing for taking his anger at our landlord out on us, and how he was going to be OUR favorite neighbor too (a fact that Brooks HIGHLY doubted at the time.....like a LOT). He then told us stuff Brooks really didn't need to pass on to me, like how an oppossum had fallen out of our shower in our house through the ceiling and that's why he had a "newly" redone bathroom, etc. Lovely. He told us his past (which was legitimately scary) and how he found God a little late in life and he and his wife don't have children because they married late, yadda yadda. Kids are USUALLY scared of him (I don't blame them!!!) so he doesn't know how to act around them.

Fast forward 9 months and I can honestly tell you, he's our best neighbor. This "scary-looking", voice-booming man who spends his time driving around giving stuff to homeless people, whittling crosses to hand out and welding whistles for my kids. 

Remember when they came to our house for Christmas Eve? 

(he calls Royce, "Rosco" and Royce loves him)

He cried while he was here on Christmas Eve because all his family is dead and his wife's family doesn't like him so this was his only family get-together in such a long time.

Here are the girls with him after taking him a pie for his birthday in November....

Once or twice a week I'll get a text from him asking to send one of my kids over to meet him and his wife in the driveway.....they always come back with treats, crackers, pop or some surprise for them that they picked up at the store. And he ALWAYS includes a wrapped package in newspaper that says, "for Melissa" that's full of chocolate.

When we got out of town he'll leave messages wishing us a safe travel. He's home during the day, so whenever we're out playing he watches my kids. I think it's better then TV for them. Here's an example of a story he and his wife told me the other day that they laughed and laughed at. 

Ms. Kaye (his wife) said that they just LOVED watching the kids roll the trash can outside. (SICK!!!) But MY side of the story was, I saw Emerson and Aleeya laughing and pushing this trash can outside. I didn't want the trash can damaged so I went out there and told them to put it back where it was and to not play with trash (the things we say as parents!!!). Then Aleeya quickly said, "There's no one in the trash can!" Great. So I walked over and opened it up and lo and behold, there's Camden rolling around in the nasty trash can THAT HAD TRASH IN IT!!!!!! So I sent him in to take a shower.

You can see how my neighbors are entertained, right?

They love watching all our games of baseball and basketball, bubble-blowing and bike-riding. Mr. Bruce LOVES it the most when Aleeya stands up on the fence post and sings/belts her heart out every song that she knows.

To be honest, I feel safe knowing he's my neighbor. I had a door salesman that came one time and Bruce saw and walked out just to make sure I was okay. I honestly believe he would take a bullet for any of my kids and defend them with his life.

My point? This COULD HAVE been a horrible situation. It COULD HAVE been a nightmare living next to some scary and intimidating person. Had I went with my first impression of this man, this story would've probably had a different ending. But because Brooks showed love and kindness that one time it has been given back to us 100 times over.  We need to give everyone the benefit of the doubt. Show love and remember that a soft answer turneth away wrath.

Plus, what would I do w/o Mr. Bruce's texts telling me what a good mom I am?!?!? ;)

We love our neighbors.