Investing in Others

My son is only two weeks away. That is pretty unbelievable. Claudia and I are overwhelmed with excitement to meet him. She’s a little bit more excited because she’s so incredibly over being pregnant. She has constant back pain and is tired because he moves during the night and wakes her up.

The good thing is that once he’s born, she’ll finally get the rest she needs. Right? Because he’ll always be asleep? Why would the saying “Sleeps like a baby” exist if that wasn’t true?

Now that we’re so close, it’s easy to see the love we’ve received from others. We are incredibly blessed to have had more than a few baby showers, and the guys even did a diaper bash for me. Again, incredibly thankful.

We were leaving church this past Sunday and as I was putting more gifts that we’ve received in the car when Sue, a lady who lives in the neighborhood, came up to me. Sue has lived near the church for a number of years and has visited us a few times and has quite the story which I may write about at a later time. If you didn’t know who she was, you would think she was homeless, which she might be at times.

Sue comes up to me and asks if we’re the ones who had a baby shower the week before. I reply yes.

“Here. For the baby,” she says as she extends her hand with a crumpled up $5 bill.

I’m loading up my trunk with boxes of diapers and more gifts and Sue is here offering the little money that she has.

“Oh no. I can’t take that. We have more than enough. Thank you, though.”

“You sure? Ok,” she says as she leaves and goes about her business.

Dang it, Sue. Thanks for slapping me in the face with a bible. I know there are several times when I could have been a better Christian to someone in need. And I’m not referring only to people asking for money. I mean someone who might only need a word of encouragement or a show of support. Or maybe just stop to have a conversation and spend some time with them.

This is something that I want to teach my son. We need to invest in others in whichever way we can. But I know that I need to make sure to learn that first.