How my neighbor changed the way I think about my son

Hi friends! The head pastor of my church asked me to share a testimony this past weekend about experiencing Jesus in my daily life. This is the manuscript version of what I shared:

Hi, I’m Deanne and I am a stay-at-home mom of three children. My youngest child, Salem, has a very rare genetic syndrome.   It is so rare that there is no proper name for it and the doctors were not able to tell us exactly what to expect of his development and future because they don’t know. Most of the time I am completely fine with my son’s diagnosis. But there are certain things that will trigger me to get very depressed about it. I have prayed that God would comfort me and give me His perspective on my son during those times.

Recently, I had the privilege of leading a small group with some amazing women from Azure Hills church. We read a book together that really challenges comfortable American Christianity. In one part of the book it talked about how often in our Christian communities we have a tendency to completely surround ourselves with each other, and therefore all of our relationships are quite easy because they are only with people who are like us and who love us back. However, if you look at how Jesus lived when He was on this earth, He invested in people who were different than Him, harder to love, and who couldn’t give Him anything back. After I read that part of the book, I felt very convicted that God wanted me to pursue a friendship with my neighbor, Debbie.

I’m very ashamed to say that Debbie is not someone I really wanted to become friends with because she’s kind of strange and very different from me. If you see Debbie you will see that all of her front teeth have rotted away, her eyes go in different directions so you can’t tell where she’s looking, she wears big baggy clothes and doesn’t always look clean, and she has a tendency to talk A LOT about her cats. Since I felt this conviction about becoming her friend, I told my small group about it so that I would be accountable to them and actually do it even though I didn’t want to.

The first time that I went to visit Debbie, I was actually very sad about my son. He had recently had to change two of his therapists and he had been reevaluated, which is always hard because he tests so far below his age. When I got to Debbie’s I simply asked her to tell me her life story because I didn’t really know anything about her.   I found out that Debbie has had a very hard life. By the way, I do have Debbie’s permission to share everything I am sharing with you. Debbie has been married several times. She has been taken advantage of by many men in her life, so much so that to this day she doesn’t know who the father is of either of her fully grown children. She used to be homeless for some time and she has Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD). In fact, when she was homeless and really struggling with her OCD, she was asked to be on the Dr. Phil Show, but she declined because she has social anxiety. She also has a major digestive disorder that prevents her from working, so she literally is home alone every day. After I heard about her life, I then told her about mine. When I started to describe my son to her and the unknowns of his future and how I don’t know what he will be like cognitively and socially and so on, she sincerely asked me this question: “Well, is he loving?”  “Yes,” I answered, quite thrown by her question, “he’s very loving.” Then she smiled at me and cheerfully said, “Well, there you go.”

I’ve thought so much about my interactions with Debbie. There is nothing outwardly impressive about her. She’s not attractive, athletic, artistic, musical, or well educated. She’s not well connected to her family, doesn’t have many friends, and doesn’t even have a job. But as I’ve spent time with Debbie every week now, I have discovered something that she is really good at. Debbie sits alone at home all day and talks to Jesus. She reads her Bible the very little bit that she is able to with her eye condition. She sits in front of her glass doors with the gate open and whenever anyone walks by, she goes out and greets them and talks to them. She knows every neighbor in our townhouse community and knows their needs. She does prayer walks around our community and has seen God answer some of those prayers. Debbie knows Jesus and is incredibly good at loving Him and others. I started to wonder that maybe because Debbie didn’t have all these opportunities to invest in all these skills and achievements that we spend a lot of our time on, that she was able to throw herself completely into knowing and loving God and other people.  I thought, “if my son became like Debbie, I would be so happy for him and proud of him.”

I thought God led me to Debbie simply because she needed me. But I have discovered that I also needed her and that He has been answering my prayers to give me His perspective on my son. All of the unknowns of Salem’s future don’t really matter to me anymore. Because what is known is that he can know and love God with all his heart and love his neighbor as himself and that’s what matters most of all.