https://youtu.be/IG6QIoF3Frc?si=1lM-UhCo0kcV1Gu0
God recently reminded me that I have always continued to try to show up as a neighbour even while wrestling with the wounds inflicted and wielding weapons of destruction in this experience of good and evil.

Often rearranging our home and life to make space for someone, investing in equipment to make their stay as comfortable as possible, sleep-deprived nights supporting people in and outside of our home, showing up when they needed help, adjusting our days to support them, jumping into their vehicle or taking mine for the ride into the city, or to some appointment so that they would have company and extra hands and eyes to handle their little people, and extra ears to hear, interpret, and advocate while continuing to work on my handy dandy little pocket warrior which the rest of the world calls a phone, listening to hopes and fears, celebrating wins and being available to listen to fears and anxieties day and night, sometimes very late at night, investing time and money in challenging my norms and moving towards healing etc. etc. etc.

Because when a barrage of major storms hit our family back to back and I had to ask for help it cut me so very deeply that some people expected an apology because they showed up for us and I was so battered while trying to keep our ship afloat that I did not do things exactly as they wanted or expected.

It’s been eye-opening to see how many people have been willing to take liberally while seemingly counting and keeping a tally of every second that they give.

It’s been incredible to see how many people think that giving means that the receiver has no right to use their voice to express their perspective about the experience.

It’s been more incredible and deeply saddening to see how many of us don’t even know that we have received, because we so misguidedly use money as the measure of giving.

God needed to remind me that I am a good neighbour because I was really struggling with depression at losing whom I thought were friends, and depressed with the thought that I must really not have much to offer at all.

God needed to remind me that I am a good neighbour because I have been unapologetically fighting this fight as a human being living in the experience of good and evil, consistently fighting to love through the experience of good and evil, continuing to seek to honour freedom in this experience of good and evil, consistently sharing the message that we win when we wrestle with openness and honesty to feel and heal the wounds made in this experience of good and evil.

God needed to remind me so that I could keep being a good neighbour who was open to having God scold me when I was forgetting to show up with love.

God needed to remind me that there were periods of my life where I enjoyed pinning a fellow wrestler mercilessly to the wall with my tongue and relished keeping them pinned to that wall in my mind.

God needed to remind me of all of this so that I could keep loving people since we are all wrestling to figure out how to consistently be neighbours, because we are all people worth fighting for.

And while I strive to be a good neighbour, I get to be human worth fighting for too.