Almost 20 years ago now, I was at the park with my two sons. They were 1 and a half and 3 and a half. We had just moved to Pflugerville, and we know no one. My husband was up in Waco at his office (about 90 miles away) and planning to spend the night up there. This is back in the day when cell phones weighed 9 pounds and were carried around in bags, so I certainly didn’t have one yet. I’d gotten through my first day of classes for my doctorate, picked up the kids from daycare, fed them, and decided that it would be nice for all of us to relax at the park that was just a very short walk away.

The kids were happily playing on the little playground, and I sat down on a bench to read and watch them.  Another somewhat older boy joined them on the playground and eventually stood up on the firetruck and started throwing rocks at the trees behind me. At this point, I started looking around for his parents, but couldn’t see them. Then one of the rocks fell short and hit the top of my head.

I knew it had hit me pretty hard because i was feeling a touch woozy, and I touched my right cheek and determined that the reason it felt wet was that I had blood running down the side of my face. So here I was, knowing my brain wasn’t working right, knowing I was bleeding a fair bit, with two little kids.

There was a soccer practice going on at the park, so I walked over to the sideline where the parents were hanging out and asked if any of them would willing to help me get my children home and contact my husband.

Picture that. You’re watching your daughter’s soccer practice and this woman walks up to the group of parents. She’s got blood running down the side of her face. And she asks you to walk her and her kids to their house.

One of those women did. She helped me get the boys back to the house. She helped me call my husband. She insisted on calling 911 and stayed until they got there. She stayed long enough that she was probably late collecting her daughter from practice. It turns out that I did have a (relatively mild) concussion.

I’ve always been grateful to that woman, and I’ve never known who she was. I was sufficiently dazed that I failed to recognize if I ever met her again, and no one has ever told me that she was the person who came to my rescue that night.

Whenever I look back and remember that night (and a couple of other incidents in my life), I always have to wonder. What would I have done had I been on that sideline? I do know what my answer should be. But is that always my response to the opportunities to help others that God brings my way?

Photo by Nina Strehl on Unsplash

I was recently reading Galatians as part of my daily Bible reading, and it brought to mind one of the songs from my childhood: They’ll Know We Are Christians. I’m confident that everyone who went to a youth group in the late 60’s or 70’s instantly has the song playing in their heads. It was right up there with Everything to Me, Pass It On, and I Wish We’d All Been Ready in popularity. Younger people might want to check out the covers by Jars of Clay or For King and Country. Although the music was very much of its time, a part of me would like to see a song like that become popular again, because it had a message the church needs reminding of regularly.

You see, the song was inspired by John 13:35, where Jesus says, “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (ESV).

Love for who? I know I’m supposed to love my enemies. I know I’m supposed to love the lost and share the gospel with them. I know I’m supposed to minister to the poor and needy. And, of course, husbands are supposed to love their wives.

Too often, we miss this crucial bit. John 13:34 is even stronger: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another” (ESV). We’re not just supposed to love our fellow Christians; we’re supposed to love them the way Christ loved us.

Too often, we just don’t, do we? Instead, we fight to get our way in the church, whether it’s a matter of having support for the ministry we want, disagreements about music style, or even just fighting over the color of the carpet. We gossip about each other. Sometimes it’s the straightforward, “Did you hear about . . . ” version. More often, we cloak our gossip in apparent piety with overly detailed prayer requests: “Please pray for the Whites. They are are going through a hard time with their daughter . . . .” If the prayer request includes sordid details, it’s much more loving and pious to stop at the first period. God knows the details of the need, and the whole church doesn’t need to know. Yes, specific prayer is good, but we really don’t need to know everything about everybody.

This failure to love and care for our fellow Christians is sometimes a monetary one as well. While many churches do have “benevolence funds” intended to help members in need, they tend to be limited. And it’s often easier to get people to give money for missions if the money isn’t “just” going to support the missionaries.

Is it any wonder that the world doesn’t associate Christianity with love? Perhaps we all need to work on putting these verses from Galatians into more consistent practice.

And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith. Galatians 6:9-10  (ESV)

Photo by Tim Marshall on Unsplash