Always Reminded...

AJ and I did some yard work yesterday for my mom. We trying to help get the house ready for when she tries to sell it and it was sunny for a little yesterday, so we took advantage of it and tried our best to do as much work as we could. AJ was so wonderfully nice to me and mowed the lawn and tried fix the weed-wacker, while I weeded the flower bed. We were taking a little break and drinking out of our water bottles when he saw some of our neighbors across the street.

Here is a little background knowledge about the neighbors across the street. One New Year's Eve my brother-in-law saw some of their kids trying to get into one of my sibling's car outside, and followed the kids home and told their parents. Then last summer I went to take Ernie outside late one night, only to find out that our front door and door step had been covered in honey, catsup, and fry sauce, our lawn had been toilet papered and plastic utensils had been stabbed into the lawn, our cars had cheese-wiz all over them and glass root beer bottles were under the tires of our cars. It was insane. Later, we found out from another neighbor that the same thing had happened to them and it was the kids from the house across the street. Finally, one day when AJ was outside with his friends and the dad from that house came over and kind of got into a fight with AJ about driving too fast down the road. That dad had also gotten in a fight with one of my brother-in-laws about driving too fast down the road. Then one day my mom answers the door to a cop who said that the people across the street called them and reported AJ's license plate and one of his friends license plate to them because they were speeding down the road. My mom talked with the cop and he said that there was nothing he could do since this was a private road and it wasn't really a big deal.

Obviously, as you can tell, we aren't the biggest friends with the neighbors across the street and for more than one reason, I don't really like them. (So back to our original story).

AJ sees the dad outside and we start talking about them and AJ says, "You know asking us to slow down when their kids are outside isn't really an outrageous request. I should go say sorry to him." I quickly reply and remind him of all the stuff they did and how they are jerks and don't deserve any kind of apology, and that they should apologize to us. I'm pretty sure that AJ didn't here anything I said, stands up and says, "I'm going to go apologize," and by the time I could say anything he was across the lawn.

I couldn't help but smile and feel an enormous amount of joy at his amazing Christ-like action. I could only hear him a little bit, but he said something like, "I just wanted to apologize to you for getting in that fight with you. It is a reasonable request to ask us to slow down around your kids, and I'm sorry about that." I didn't hear what the other guy said, but they shook hands and that was it. I am always reminded at how wonderful AJ is and what a humble man he is. He had nothing to apologize for, we don't speed down this road and there are so many more things that this family has done to us and yet he goes over to them and apologizes. I love him and I can't believe how amazing he is. I need to try to be more like AJ and just be kind and forgiving, no matter how much wrong someone has done to me. He was radiant the rest of the day. Doing this one good deed made his day and I fed off of his joy. It was a great day because of one simple apology.