Watching my son and daughter play together can be quite interesting. It seems no matter what the disagreement, it can be fixed by redirection and a hug. Well, most days.

My son loves with no boundaries. At almost three years old, his heart is so big and full of light. His teeth grin can be contagious. 

One day my kids and I were in the grocery store. Up ahead was an older man in a wheelchair, with the sense he was struggling. In my attempt to find the right seasoning, staring for what my kids said felt like hours, I gave up and pushed the cart up the aisle.

As we approached the man who was sitting slumped seeming sad, my son reached out with a smile and a fist, his silent request for a stranger’s fist bump.

I stopped. The man seemed startled.

He slowly smiled.

As their fists bumped, they both made the pshhhh sound as they raised their fists apart. The man broke out into the best laugh I’d ever heard. My son hadn’t stopped smiling.

It seems he saw something that I never did. A simple gesture to make someone’s day. A bright spot in the mundane. A couple aisles over, I heard the man tell a random stranger what a baby had did to him and his voice echoed contagious love.

My son teaches me these things every day. His abandoned heart for others is so precious. In the chaos, in the non stop voice in my head fog, in the mom brain, Love prevails.

Love interrupts.

What if we loved people that way? What if we loved like we’d never been hurt?

Our neighbors are encounters with others that give us this opportunity all throughout our day. We never know the pain, or the loneliness someone is battling.

We have a great example in One who waited, Who left the 99, Who loved us at our worst.

Love changes the direction, the atmosphere.

It takes just a few seconds.

#loveyourneighborchallenge