Someone to Look After

During my second year of college I was scouting around for a place to
live, as my roommates had dropped out of school. One Sunday after
church the pastor put his arm around me and said, "I understand you
need a room. Our daughter is in New Zealand this year as a foreign
exchange student. If you'd like to stay with us you may use her room."

To be honest, I really didn't want to stay with "the preacher's
family." I was 19 years old and on my own. But then he told me how
much rent would be -- a ridiculously low figure that included one
home-cooked meal a day. I thought about the offer for about a minute
and decided to move in.

At the end of the semester I had planned to find other living
arrangements, since the daughter was to return home. But they asked
if I wanted to stay on another term, suggesting I move across the
hall and share a room with their son. By this time I seemed to have
been adopted into their family -- her people became my people, as it
was put so beautifully in the old biblical story of Ruth. I happily
accepted the offer.

As I vacated the daughter's bedroom, I thought it might be nice to
have a little sister to look after. But when I later met my new
sister, I realized that this idea of looking after her might be more
interesting than I first imagined.

We eventually fell in love, married, and have looked after one
another for many years. There have been times that life turned out to
be more challenging than either of us could have known. But we have
always been able to go forward largely because we knew that somebody
deeply cared.

It isn't about marriage ... it's about love. It's about mothers and
fathers, sisters and brothers and special friends who are as close as
family. It's about anybody who can say, "I'll be around -- you can
count on me. I'll try to look after you and sometimes I will need
you to look after me."

Is there somebody you can depend on? And are others counting on
you? We travel the path of life best when there is somebody to look
after, and when someone is looking after us.