Second Chances

Second Chances

One spring afternoon, Marva rang my doorbell. She explained that she had done some work for other folks in my neighborhood and wondered if I might have something for her. She was sick, she said, and needed money for medicine. She did not look well.

I asked her what kinds of jobs she’d done for my neighbors. “I could clean your windows,” she offered. So we circled my house, counting the windows and agreeing on a price. But Marva didn’t have her supplies with her. It was too hard for her to carry them every day, she said, because she had a lot of pain. I asked if she could come the next day, and she said she could. So I put some cash in an envelope and waited.

But she didn’t come the next day. Or the next. She didn’t return to my door for two weeks. When Marva rang the bell again, I offered the same deal we’d agreed upon the first day we met. When she’d been cleaning a little while, I left and drove to a nearby spot to get her a hamburger. (She still looked very thin and frail.) I was afraid she might be offended that I’d bought her lunch, so I asked her if she wanted to share a burger with me. She did. But we didn’t exactly eat together. I took her a plate and a drink, and she sat down on my porch steps to eat.

I fixed my plate but stayed in the house. I wanted to go outside, sit down, and ask her to tell me her story. But I didn’t. And I still don’t know why not.

Marva cleaned my windows last week. I fed her lunch and paid her well, but I didn’t do what I should have done. I didn’t love her as a neighbor. I didn’t listen to her and honor her bravery to come and ask again for work. Marva got a second chance, and she made good on it. I hope she’ll give me another chance one day soon, so that I can do the same.

“You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

Matthew 22:37-39, NASB