One of the greatest GIFTS
“Oh, there you are Peter?”
Photo by David-Olivier Gascon on Unsplash
I was listening to a recent podcast and one of the things that were talked about was being seen. That it is one of the greatest gifts we can give someone…to see them. I had never thought about that necessarily being a gift. It communicates that they have worth and potential. This got me thinking.
Our neighbor...
Our neighbor right across the street moved yesterday. We lived right across the street 24 of the 38 years that they lived in our neighborhood. When we first moved in we hardly saw them. Our kids were little and theirs were older. We also played in the back yard because the street being so busy. I had also had a dream that our kids rode their bikes from our driveway into their driveway right across the street without even looking. I meant nightmare because I dreamed of them getting hit by a car. So, it became easier to have them play in the back yard. It seemed too that we all got in a routine of going to work and when we were outside, we were working, but not necessarily socializing. About 10 years ago, our neighbor told us that he had lung cancer. We were shocked as we had not talked at that level before. We were sorry and told him we would be praying for him. We began to see him hang out more as he worked on his lawn. We saw him begin to walk in the neighborhood and just hang out in the front of his house and try and catch us in conversation.
Then one time...
Then one time our dog got loose and he called my husband at work to tell him our dog was running around the neighborhood. Someone had let her out and she had been wondering and he took it upon himself to help. In the last couple years, he began to ask us to bring in their packages and watch their house when they were gone. They even began to count how many packages UPS delivered to our house compared to theirs. Fun! In many ways, he was inviting us to see him. He did this first by communicating a need and then by going out of his way to see us. Since we found out that our neighbors were leaving, I began to grieve. I was wondering why it affected me so much. I realize now that we didn’t give the gift of seeing, but they gave us that gift. As new neighbors will be moving in, I’m planning to offer the gift that the previous neighbors had given us. To see them.
How about YOU?
Tell about a time when you felt seen.