Day 8 - Anxiously Engaged

A couple of years ago we had a storm that dropped nearly a foot of snow over night, and it wasn't the light powdery stuff. Oh no. It was the heavy, wet, perfect for making snowmen, snow forts, and snowballs kind of snow. Of course that's a blast if you're a little kid, but it the bane of the shoveler's existence. 

I try to be a good neighbor, so, because we have elderly neighbor on either side of us who can't really do their own shoveling, I committed to them to keeping their driveways and walks cleared. I would be less than honest if I said I was excited at the prospect of shoveling a foot of wet heavy snow off my driveway and walks, let alone doing my neighbors. However, that storm turned out to be a tremendous blessing. 

I went out to shovel my own driveway and walks, along with my older teenagers. As we shoveled, we saw a neighbor come out to start shoveling their walks and driveway. Since there were four of us working, we got done sooner so we went over and helped our neighbor. We then recruited him to help us with our elderly neighbors houses. By that time a different neighbor had come out and started working on their walks so we went to help them. Everything snowballed from there. We ended up shoveling the walks and driveways for nearly the entire neighborhood, with about 20 people dividing and conquering, including four missionaries. We all got anxiously engaged in a good cause, and brought to pass much good in much less time than it would have taken for people to do their own shoveling individually. What's more, neighbors who had been living near each other for years and had never met, actually got out and got to know each other a little bit as they worked side by side. 

That experience was great for our neighborhood and marvelous for my children as the got to experience first hand the powerful good that can come when a group of people work together for a good cause. 

And that was truly...

WONDERFUL!