My next-door neighbor’s little Yorkie died today. Seems it escaped from the backyard and was likely killed by a larger dog, according to animal control. I helped in the search for the pet and tried my best to comfort my brokenhearted neighbor, who has a young daughter and just lost her husband a few months ago. She moved in only recently.

I feel blessed to live in a culturally diverse area of the U.S. and I know virtually all of the neighbors on my street, at least on a first-name basis. We live at the very top and center of a long, steep, wooded cul-de-sac with a big sky and an open view, so I have a visual reminder of all of my neighbors on the block each time I go out the front door. Most of my immediate neighbors are white or hispanic, but there are many different ethnic groups represented locally.

It has occurred to me recently how even just my little neighborhood is such a microcosm of a hurting world…

Three people on my block are caregivers for parents, spouses, or a mentally disabled child. One of them lost his disabled father just three weeks ago and continues to care for his aged mother. He also sends food support to impoverished family members in Venezuela, but only when they can obtain the gasoline to travel to the border to collect it. At least two of my neighbors suffer with depression. One of them was just laid off from his job and worries that his age is a disincentive to potential employers. Some of my neighbors subscribe to “alternative” lifestyles. ALL of my neighbors, like us, simply need Jesus. We would not have known that any of these things were going on around us if we had not taken the time to reach out to a perceived need, or at least, to introduce ourselves.

This post is just to ask for PRAYER that God will help me and my wife be TRUE neighbors and that our influence will go well beyond just delivering handmade chocolates at Christmas, giving out sweets and tracts to trick-or-treaters at Halloween, or taking food if someone dies. Please pray that our neighbors will see JESUS, and not us. It’s only when people see Jesus that miracles can happen, lives and hearts can be changed, and people can be introduced to the only true source of comfort, peace, and eternal life!

Matthew 22:37-40 NASB “And He said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.’ ”

You may well be the only person reading my posts, but I would write them anyway in the hope that they might be of some encouragement, if only to YOU, my neighbor!