It was a beautiful fall day as I stopped at our post office here in Eads, Colorado. As I inserted my key in our mailbox, a lady nearby reached into her box to retrieve her mail. “It sure is a pretty day,” I said, expecting almost anything other than what I heard in return. “Yeah, but I hate it here,” she replied. “You hate it here?” I exclaimed.
At that point the conversation became what she hated about living in our fine town. It was all about the fact that she grew up in Denver where everything is bigger and better and that her husband’s job brought them here to live, “unfortunately,” as she ended her response.
Then the lady, it seemed, realized that she had someone on whom she could spill all of her dislikes about the area. She just had to say that she hated living in a town where there is only one of this and one of that. Worse yet, where there is none of this and none of that.
I really felt sorry for the young woman. I did my best to ask about her connections with other people, about her children (she had none), about church, (again, no church), etc. I even went into how Dianne and I had each lived all our lives in big cities with all of its hubbub and traffic. I told her how we live here in Eads by choice, how we love the people, and we really enjoy the lack of traffic. She didn’t budge.
It became obviously apparent that the lady had made a choice. She had made her decision not to be content here until she and her husband moved on. Of course, then one might ask, will she be happy anywhere else? I can’t answer that. But I did wish her the best.
Moving on, I’ve been having a recurring series of thoughts swirling around in my head. They are thoughts about attitudes. One is my own attitude about relationships and grudges. For example, while I don’t want to allow a person to walk all over me, as a Christian I don’t want to hold a grudge against him when he does.
Another attitude I deal with is that I want to become better at accepting people with whom I don’t agree even I think they are terribly missing the truth.
And finally, least but not last (I know, I know), I need to have an attitude of forgiveness toward those who say that I am (fill in the space). You see, my favorite person in the entire world, and if you know me you know who He is, said, “This is my command, that you love one another as I have loved you.”
I think my friend is saying that goes for those of us in The Garden of Eads as well as everywhere else as well.
