Blessings: Small Community (Day 28)
Calatayud Verse to ponder: How good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity! Psalm 133:1
I live in a very small town. When I first moved here, I was a senior in high school and CRAZY angry at my parents for moving me across the United States to a place where I’d literally be less than a block away from a farm. The first time I walked outside and heard the bleating of sheep and the moo-ing of cows? I was done.
That summer a billion years ago, one of my new neighbors introduced me to her BFF’s son, a guy my age, who was kind enough to be friendly with me. I was given the chance to be a part of a group that represented the mall — back in the day when malls were still really a thing — and I started making friends.
Fast forward a few years (okay, a lot of years, but I like to pretend I’m still young), and here I am raising my own family still in this teeny community. I’ve had the same post office box for almost 20 years, and I’ve been taking my children to the same pediatrician for nine years (the first year of Miss Sassy Pants’s life was spent going to a family practitioner who proved to be not-so-worthy of my time).
Today, I realized what a blessing it is to live in such a small community. I walk into the post office, and they just hand me my packages. No longer do I need to tell them my box number. Sometimes, even when they’ve already locked the door for the business day, they see me pull up to check my mail and then stick their heads through and say, “Hey! You have a package!”
At the local consignment shop (which my buddy owns), I can just drop items off without filling out forms or reminding them who I am. They trust that what I’m bringing is quality, and I don’t worry that anyone is going to cheat me out of any sorts of earnings.
And the doctor’s office? Today, I was able to talk to the nurse (who knows me by name) and get a refill of eye drops for Flash who — once again — has pink eye. Normally, I’d have to be seen. But they know me so well and trust that I’m not trying to get high off of eye drops.
Not to mention the fact that Aaron was able to just go into the pharmacy and have them know who he was and what he was picking up.
While the community is small with its one grocery store and two traffic lights (oh wait, we do have a blinking light — so, three), there are many perks. I laugh about how angry I was years ago with this place my parents had moved me. Now, I couldn’t imagine raising my children anywhere else.
