Pretending She’s My Sister
Yesterday, my eldest sister, who has three kids of her own, made two lasagnas to take to a family of nine who just moved to town.
My sister has lived in her small town for the last fifteen years. She got married there; she had her babies there; she made a life there.
In those fifteen years, our middle sister has moved from Syria to Lebanon to Yemen to India to South Sudan to Chad (and a few other countries I’m forgetting—there was a brief stop in France at one point, a stint in China), and I have moved from Tennessee to Virginia to Oklahoma to California to Texas to Florida back to Virginia and now back to California.
Sometimes, when I visit my sister, I think about what it would be like to stay. To have a place to call home. To have people who know me, who’ve watched my children grow up, who share a dozen years of history with me. I think about what it would be like to be her.
But this week, when a new family showed up at church, seven kids all in a row, my sister looked at them and thought to herself, “If that was Marian, how would I want others to take care of her?” So she introduced herself and gave the wife her phone number and offered to bring them a meal—and then followed through even when it took time and effort and intention.
With this move, we have been so blessed by people who have treated our family like family. They stocked our temporary lodging with cereal and milk and coffee. They brought by cheesecake and fresh fruit to keep us going on the long days full of slicing open box flaps and reassembling our home. They invited us over for dinner, introduced us to their friends, joined us at the pool and the playground.
Maybe they thought, “If I was moving, this is how I would want to be treated.” And as military families, they know what it feels like to pick up and start over again where you know nothing and no one.
But maybe you are not part of a military family. Maybe you aren’t semi-nomadic. Maybe you have been blessed by getting to stay in the same place for fifteen years, putting down roots, developing a place of your own, building a home that doesn’t need to get packed up, loaded on a moving truck, and unpacked again every few years.
Regardless, maybe, every now and then, we need to ask ourselves, “If this was my sister, how would I want others to take care of her?”
I know that’s a question I often need in my mind.
When the mom down the street has a sick kid—if that was my sister, how would I want her neighbors to take care of her?
When the woman I meet at the playground has a deployed spouse—if that was my sister, how would I want her community to take care of her?
When the new friend tells me about an area where she’s struggling—if that was my sister, how would I want her friends to take care of her?
I would want my sister’s friends to listen to her well, to bring her a meal or a cup of coffee at just the right moment, to offer to keep her kids so she could have a moment of quiet (or the ability to go to a doctor’s appointment without an entourage). I’d want them to invite her to do things with them, to share books with her, to tell her that she’s pretty and smart and funny and good at what she does (whether that’s raising three kids or putting in water pumps).
I can say that I want these things for her—when sometimes it’s hard to admit that I want these things for myself too—because she’s my sister and I love her.
And the truth is, I don’t get to live just down the street from my sisters. On the hard days, I don’t get to stop by with ice cream and a hug. On the slow days, I don’t get to hang out with them while the kids rampage and we sip coffee (or tea). On the sick days, I can’t drop off a pot of soup and a box of tissues; I can’t drive them to the doctor or help them rewrap a bandage. On the days of milestones, I can’t celebrate with them in person, bringing by a bottle of sparkling grape juice and blowing a frilled cardboard horn directly in their ears like we used to at New Years in Indonesia.
I don’t get to do those things, but thank God there are other women who step in and fill the gaps for me.
The Bible has a lot to say about brotherly love, but I don’t have any brothers (though I do have some extremely awesome brothers-in-law). On the other hand, I do have sisters I love who also love me. And so I think now, instead of worrying about brotherly love (which, last time I checked, had a lot to do with arm wrestling and burping contests), I’m going to be working on sisterly love by pretending that the neighbor down the street or the mom I just met or the woman I was talking to at church is my sister.
Because I am always so very grateful when someone does that for me. And also so grateful when someone does that for my sisters.
So, what about you? If she was your sister, how would you want someone to take care of her?
