I Just Love This Story

There are a lot of things I love about where we live.

You know.

Pisgah’s beautiful forest.

My sort-of-because-my-cousin-Sherry-once-explained-it-to-me relative Carl Sandburg’s house.

Hendersonville.  (What can I say?  Its streets likes my feets!)

Downtown Greenville.

The vast and varied assortment of fellow homeschoolers.

Incredible local theatre in every direction.

Target is so much closer here than it was from our former home.

All of those things are cool.

But that’s not why I really love where I live.

I love where I live because our family gets to regularly interact with an ever-changing group of God-fearing, God-loving college students known at our home as simply “summer staffers”.

I’ve written about these guys before.  (Too many times to even link them all up here.)

I’m frequently convicted, challenged and encouraged by the manner in which these young men and young women serve God, serve one another and even serve our family.

Here is just one more example.

Time is such a gift – isn’t it?

And it is so humbling and rewarding to see a fantastic person pursue one of your kids.

Matt and Berg are buddies.

They’ve taken walks together, they chat often, they like to play around in the lake on free afternoons.

So imagine Bergen’s excitement when Matt invited him to spend an afternoon downtown with just him.

As if that alone was not enough, Matt suggested that maybe they could wear matching clothes.

Man, if only you could have seen Bergen running around our house, locating his camo shorts and his white Look Up Lodge t-shirt.

When Matt arrived the first thing Hawkeye did was to run up and check out Matt’s feet.

“Matt – do you have brown flip flops?”  he bounced around asking.

Hazah!

Matt was, in fact, wearing brown flip flops and Bergen did, in fact, also own brown flip flops.

Oh – the joy was palpable.

And did I mention this deal-clincher?

Just yesterday Bergen had granted me permission to cut his hair mohawk style again.

And when Matt saw that, guess what he did.

Yup.

He cut his hair matching mohawk style!

So now two guys dressed just alike from head to toe were ready.

Berg’s booster seat was placed in the back of Matt’s truck and the fellas were off.

Now, I wasn’t there for the whole experience, obviously.

But since my little man has arrived home, I have not stopped hearing about it.

About how they walked all around.

How they went to an ice cream store and ordered the same ice cream.

How they were able to go in that one toy store, you know, the one with the big toy soldiers.

And there was some pretty convincing evidence that they spent quite some time in that toy store.

Currently, sleeping beside Hawkeye, is a rather large green John Deere tractor.

After I thanked Matt and expressed that he went above and beyond, he simply answered, “Every little boy needs a John Deere.”

I should have known – Matt is from Virginia too.

You know, I love the places we can go here.

But it’s the people, the spectacular, generous, funny, kind people that have walked through our front door, that make this home so beautiful.

How blessed our children are to be exposed to this kind of love and friendship and camaraderie.

It’s all gift.

All grace.

All humbling.