It is Monday morning and our cottage is quiet. My husband and Joshua (12) left for work together about an hour ago. My little one, Jacob,  asked me to join him in eating his blueberry pancake, so I grabbed a fork.  We had a wonderful time sharing breakfast together from the same plate. 

 

 

It was a wonderful July 4^th holiday. We were given the keys to our new lake cottage at 4:00 p.m., on July 3^rd, just in time to enjoy the holiday week. As our farmhouse,  this cottage is old, too. It was built in the early 1900’s and has a lot of charm. There is a sidewalk out front that connects a dozen-or-so homes. The homes are close together. Having neighbors and a sense of community is all very new to us. 

 

There is a sand beach in front of most of the homes. Although we are in Indiana, it feels as if we are situated on a tiny New England coastal village. The children played on the beach for hours with the children next door to us. Ruthie found a friend that loved to play with our kittie, and in return, the little girl let Ruthie play on her scooter. It was sweet to watch my little eight year old scooting up and down the sidewalk. And again, it’s so unlike our farm environment. It is a nice change, although I still love my secluded and peaceful farm.

 

 

As usual, word has preceded us , up and down the households that connect us to them by the common sidewalk, that we have six children. Although many reading this have much larger families than this, our six children count is quite the anomaly in our culture. 

 

 

The cottage to the left of us is occupied by renters. We have met two different families so far. The first family came from a well-to-do suburb of Indianapolis (Carmel.) They had 3 children. Through small talk we got to know them just a little bit. The husband was very friendly,  as he came over to us and talked as often as he walked by. His wife seemed rather reserved, but since her husband kept coming over and showing himself to be friendly, I went out of my way to consistently try to stop and say hi to her, trying to bring her into some kind of conversation. After our first conversation, she seemed to warm up to me quite a bit.    Their smaller children blended very nicely with ours, but their 13 year old, a very pretty girl, seemed quite aloof.   Given her age, I thought her demeanor to be rather unusual. For some reason, this challenged me. Every time I would see her, I would call her by her first name, Allyson, smile real big, and try my hardest to melt her icy reserve. By her last day here, I could see just a little bit of ice melting.

 

 

Then this week, an entire  group of families have crowded into the small bungalow with a loft. There are often a dozen children coming and going all day long. They are all from Chicago, Illinois, where I was born and raised. The first night of their stay, they sat on their deck, anticipating the good nights to come with their six-packs.    They invited us to come over that evening to have a drink and to sit out on the deck with all of them.  This was their way of extending neighborly hospitality.   

 

 

One of the ladies, Denise, seemed particularly very nice. She came over a few times to ask for a favor (to borrow our hose, to ask about the garbage pick up). My twelve year old boy, Joshua, struck up quite the conversation with her two bikini-clad fifteen year old girls, while hanging out on the beach. The next day, Denise wasn’t quite so friendly to me. I have still to figure out just what conversation transpired between the three of them (her daughters and my son),  that might have changed her demeanor. In one of the few conversations I had with her (and I went out of my way to initiate it), the words, “Christian,”  and “no alcohol” and “we don’t fit in” were all in the same sentence. This all came so sudden I was a little bit on the speechless side.   Her sudden change of friendliness caught me off guard. Throughout the day, every time I would see her or her friend, Jenna, I would stop and try to chat. Not being the gifted conversationalist that I am, I found it difficult to come up with something to say, but I gave it my best shot in an effort to show myself friendly and accepting of them. 

 

 

I have met a few of the other permanent  neighbors, too. So far all of them seem to be very pleasant. We are so unused to the neighborly community,  I feel almost like a duck out of water here.   Papa Joe, John, and Jay are all grey-haired grandmpa’s that have their children and grandchildren visiting them almost every weekend. There are children everywhere. On the docks, the beaches, the sidewalks, and in the yards. There is a real sense of family here. Everyone has congregated together to enjoy their children, parents, grandchildren, and grandparents within the beautiful setting of a cottage on the lake.

 

 

This week, I have been reading in the book of Mark. I was struck particularly by the verses 49 and 50 in chapter nine. “Everyone will be salted with fire.” Now that seems  to be a verse for thought. What does that mean? 

 

“Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can you make it salty again? Have salt in yourselves, and be at  peace with each other.”

 

Salt is a preserver. I explained to my children last night in our family worship time, that in the old days, before refrigeration, that meat would be kept from rotting by the use of salt. It was a preserver. In this same way, God wants us to be a preserver in this decaying world. He wants us to be His salt on the earth. How do we do this? I explained to my children, that the only way we can do this is to ask Him, through prayer, to help us be the salt of this earth. Only through His direction and His way in our life, can this be accomplished. And such was my prayer this morning. Lord, help me to not lose my saltiness. You have placed us in this community for a divine purpose. Help our family to be salt. Help us to be that light on a hill that you have told us to be.