Amera, 3 years old
I was a new mom in a new neighborhood. I really didn't know anyone yet. It was a lonely time of settling into the home my husband had found for us.
Sure, we had each other, but that was all. I longed for a friend.
We lived across the street from an elementary school. Sometimes I would take Amera to the big park other children used for recess and she would play there after school hours.
And this was where I met her. A sweet mother of two small children. Talking to her was so easy and it was such a wonderful exchange between two young moms.
Though we had a lot in common, there was something very different about this woman. It wasn't long before I understood that she was one of those people that was "all into God". At lease that's how I put it back then. In other words, she was a Christian.
It amazes me that we could have a lot in common, yet be so different. Our conversations were so refreshing to me. I felt like she brought out the best in me. I knew better than to swear around her. I knew she wouldn't like that. And that was ok, so I refrained. Much in the same way I did with my parents but for different reasons. There was such a goodness about her and I loved being with her.
It turned out that she lived right down the street from us. She invited my husband and I to her home and as I looked around I saw some things that were foreign to me at the time.
Such as a book on the end table with the word "God" in the title and a framed picture with a Bible verse hanging on the wall.
More and more, I realized that she was different. Different than me and different from anyone else I had ever known.
But somehow it was a beautiful different--not a weird different.
It would be several months later before I would courageously walk through the door of a church. And sometimes I look back and wonder if her willingness to love someone different played a part in me finding the purest love possible in my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
He is different. But in such a wonderful way.
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