My Neighbor's Ducks

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My Neighbor's Ducks

by Katherine Kehler

"Love your neighbor" Matthew 19:19

For most of my life I have lived on acreage. As a child, I grew up on a wonderful sixty-four acre farm with rolling hills and a creek full of trout. For most of our married life, Marvin and I have lived on small farms. We love it.

When our children were younger, there was a movement among city families to buy land in the country and keep a few animals. It was a ‘back-to-nature’ kind of thing. However, most of them had no idea that animals require supervision twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

One of the new neighbors bought ducks. They seemed innocent enough, however they allowed them to run loose in their yard and their neighbor’s yards. Our cucumber patch was one of the ducks’ favorite spots to graze. Often we would "shoo" the ducks home and wonder why there wasn’t a fence to keep them in their own yard.

One day, I saw my neighbour in her yard (we had a high hedge, so I didn’t see her often). I asked her if she realized her ducks were ruining my garden. She simply told me that they were not her ducks, they were her husband’s ducks and he was away traveling. My attitude and response to her were not very gracious.

We realized that the neighbors were not going to build a fence, so we had our son build one for our yard. The ducks now stayed in their own yard. I didn’t see my neighbor again until months later. In all that time, my attitude had not improved.

A women’s church group asked me to speak at their mother/ daughter banquet. The topic was "love". Much to my chargrin, the first woman I saw when I walked into the church was my neighbor. You can imagine the struggle that began within me. I knew I could not speak about "love" to these women and their daughters when I did not love my neighbor. So immediately, I walked up to her and apologized for my attitude and asked her is she would forgive me. I should have done that months ago.

Do you have any people like that in your life? Let me encourage you, if at all possible, to clear the air between you. Ask God to give you the courage to do it now.

Father, you don’t beat around the bush. You are very clear about what you expect of us. Sometimes we don’t like it and it takes us a while to obey. But thankfully, You have given us the Holy Spirit to empower us to do whatever You ask us to do. Thank you! Amen.

~ Katherine has been a staff member with Power to Change Canada for 30 years. She has launched and developed many successful ministries, including Canadian Prayer Alert, Women In Leadership, Women Today, Women Today Magazine and Women Today Online. Katherine has written and published a book, When Dreams Come True: Women Today Online. She serves as the director for www.secretsofsuccess.com.

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