The asking and listening way to say, “I love you.”

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Windows was the subject of our ladies class on Wednesday morning. We talked about events in the Bible that involved windows. The most famous event we talked about was when Daniel prayed in front of his window, even though he knew it was against the law.

Class began with each of us telling what we see out our windows. I began by telling about the time I looked out my window and saw a daddy goose, a mama goose, and a bunch of goslings waddling down the road in front of our house. I grabbed my camera and followed them all the way to the river.

Many of the stories involved wild creatures. Miss Frances has one of the sweetest Southern voices I have ever heard. It is almost musical. Miss Frances has a kind and sweet disposition to match. She lives in a senior apartment complex. In her gentle way, she slowly drawled that she sees mama deer . . . and baby deer . . . and hills . . . and cows . . . and baby cows . . . and her neighbors.

Jane lives in the country. She sees herds of deer, squirrels, rabbits, turkeys, and her neighbors’ chickens.

Miss Johnnie Faye, who also lives in the country, sees cows and deer. She sees her neighbors hauling hay. She watches her cat playing by the barn. At night time, she lets the cat in. She lays a towel on her lap and holds him a little while. Then he heads off to the laundry room satisfied.

The stories were simple, but I loved the windows they opened into the lives of these friends. I liked imagining them at home, watching God’s creation out their windows.

I am grateful to live where there is wildlife to see. Many years ago, when we lived in Illinois, friends invited our family over for dinner. They wanted us to have the opportunity to get to know a family from Belarus. As we sat on the back deck, enjoying their pretty backyard, our friend Flo talked about the birds and squirrels that inhabited it. The mama from Belarus told us that back home they had no birds in their backyards.

I am remembering this story now,  because of Miss Katherine’s window stories on Wednesday. She lives right in the middle of town, but she also talked about the deer she sees. She told about seeing a whole herd recently. She quit counting after she got to ten.

Our window stories reminded Miss Katherine of an incident when her children were still children. Back then, they never saw deer. One morning Miss Katherine saw a large animal out her window. At first she wondered if it was a dog. Then, she realized that it was a deer. She woke the children so they could see the deer. She said with her contagious laugh, “I thought it might be the only deer they ever saw!”

When our teacher Sue took her turn to tell a story, she talked about her flowers and the chipmunk she watches. He plays on her wall while she drinks her coffee in the morning. She reminded us that sometimes we look out our windows to see the storm clouds.

Sue told us that she used to look outside to see if her daddy was dropping by her house for a visit. She had watched for him so long that after he died, she found herself looking for him for another two or three months.

Among life’s many joys is the opportunity to watch how things stay the same and how they change. It’s easy sometimes to think that things always change for the worse, but they don’t. Many things — like deer in our backyards — change for the better. As much trouble as they cause when they pop out in front of you when you are driving down the road and as frustrating as they are when they eat your garden, I am thankful that I don’t live where the environment is so dirty that God’s creatures don’t want to live there either.

Another joy of living is looking through the “window” of your friend or neighbor or mother or dad or husband or child. One way to say “I love you” is to ask and listen. Asking someone for a story and listening to it send a powerful message into his or her heart. The asking and the listening say, “You matter. You matter — period. And you also matter to me personally.”

Be devoted to one another in brotherly love; 
give preference to one another in honor;
Romans 12:10

 

 

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2 Comments

  1. I love this “getting to know” exercise. I’m thinking of using it in our young ladies discipleship meeting.

    Thank you!

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