This is my neighbor //

Recognizing my Hannah friend. 

More than a decade of support and adventures. 

We aren't a super social family. We have a few friends who are very close to us that we see now and then. We like to entertain them over an elegant dinner or host them overnight in a spotless house. These times are wonderful. Laughter and nights that last, stories told and retold and memories made.

Then sometimes our friends comes over and we put them to work, let them dig in our fridge for food, and watch tv together. Nothing glamorous that's for sure but in these times they get to experience us the way we experience each other on any ordinary day. Doing life together.  

Celebrations and dinners and carefree times together in clean and decorated spaces are wonderful; pleasurable. Times of work and silence and mundanity in the a messy home or out running errands are more special though, because they're more intimate. If my friends are also my "neighbors" I don't just want to have a friendly-hello-as-we-collect-our-newspapers type of relationship, I want the I've-seen-your-bead-head-and-you've-seen-my-messy-kitchen kind. 

I have that with my dearest friends and its good. It's an environment for grace to be shown and God's glory to be seen. 

[side note: my best friend from childhood times, Hannah, and I will get to live out this neigborliness soon. She's going to be my roommate in my new "little house". Excited!]