Time To Move On

Well, we've been in this house for a little over three years now. I have been finishing the basement for about half of that time and it is officially done. So....why not move?
Here is the deal. When we moved (from our newly built home in South Lebanon) to the west side, we strongly felt led to this house. In fact, we have always felt that the Lord was placing us somewhere strategically with all of our moves. I really loved this house. I was still in my "chasing money" mode and this house justified leaving the house we just built. Although, my question has always been, why this house? Why did God leave the door open for this one? Why this neighborhood? What did HE have in mind for us here? I thought we were supposed to "serve the rich" in some manner or form. But how do you do that? They already have everything they need, or so they think. This neighborhood also has a lot of Catholics and Elder graduates in it. It is very clicky. I have met a lot of the neighbors and they seem nice on the outside, but very shallow. I have always gotten a rise out of the reactions I would get when I was asked why we moved here (not a lot of outsiders move into the west side). My direct answer to that question is "God moved us here", and the reaction was the "look at me like I have a third eye" response. So much for faith.
Here's the part where I start bashing this neighborhood. For the past couple of weeks there has been a lot of personal attacks against our family. We have an elderly couple to the right of us that live in a 4,000 square foot, $550,000 home. They live (or should I say are dying) in their bedroom. Their bedroom window, which is open 90% of the time, faces our driveway so they are always monitoring us. Last summer I was scolded for running my tablesaw in my garage during the afternoon when they were trying to sleep. I was told that it was against the "neighborhood rules" and the it violated the "zoning laws". Their complaint this summer was about our dog barking too much. We received an anonymous letter saying that Coco is barking non stop, pissing off ALL of the neighbors and the golfers as well. The letter said that we were breaking the neighborhood rules and violating city ordinance laws. See the similarities? Even though it was signed anonymous, I know it was them.
To the left us is a couple who just sold their house for $630,000 and are moving this week. They are the only neighbors who said "Hi" to us when we moved in. There was a neighborhood yard sale this past weekend and they decided to sell a lot of the stuff that they didn't want to move. Here's the kicker.....they used our front yard and driveway to set up all of their stuff. I went out to ask them why they set up in our yard and they said that they didn't want to block the private drive that they live off of. Their house is situated at the end of the drive and ours is in between theirs and the actual street. They asked me if I was mad but I humbly said "No", even though I was because I wanted to mow my grass that was littered with all of their stuff. I gave them some grace since they are the only couple who have communicated with us.
Last week, our nanny tried to take Anthony to the neighborhood pool. She was approached by some old woman who decided to interrogate her for being there. Neighborhood rules clearly state that you have to be a resident of this neighborhood, at least 16 years of age, have a photo I.D., wear Depends undergarments and be an active member of Elderly Aquatics Exercise Club to get into our pool now. Obviously this woman is one of the board members and didn't have anything better to do except harass the two people who were at the pool that day. I know that I am going to be old some day, but I hope that I am not that bored. By the sounds of this blog, I think it's a given that I am going to be bitter. I'm not really that bitter these days, it's just that I have been pushed to my limit and I feel as though it's time to push back.
One of my pet peaves is the way people drive in this neighborhood. "It's hilly so I have to do 45 miles per hour when I coast down one hill and drive up the other", or "Oh, nobody stops for that STOP sign, so why should I". We live at the end of a cul-de-sac. Three houses up, a street T's into ours. There is a STOP sign there, but nobody stops at it because they assume nobody that lives down at this end of the street has a car. It's not like we would need to go anywhere anyway since we "Already have everything we NEED". I have a big truck, o.k. it's a HUMMER, and I am always waiting for the next person that runs the STOP sign and pulls out in front of me. And believe me, it has happened a lot. It just happened two days ago. This guy drove through the STOP sign, right out in front of me and then decided to stop. I went straight at him. The look in his eyes was pure shock and I could see him boggling for his stick shift to find reverse. I think he actually crapped himself too. I did casually swerve to miss him, but I would have cut it closer if I didn't have the whole family with me. The Lord has worked so hard with me to help me get rid of my road rage and now I feel like that I can't even pull out of my neighborhood without having some kind of confrontation.
Last and also the least, there's the golfers. The foul mouthed, pissing in my yard right in front of me, and can't hit a golf ball to save their life golfers. Don't get me wrong, not all of them are bad. But....
I'm quite certain all of this crap is spiritual warfare. Attacks from the enemy himself. The sad pathetic thing is that these people are satan's pawns. Just being used by the loser himself. They just don't get it and they're catholic.
I have vented now. So how am I supposed to be a role model for Jesus in this situation? How do I show LOVE WINS? How do I not judge other people in these circumstances? How do I take my own advice and respect those who are different from me? These are my struggles and I am doing a bad job at handling them. This blog makes it sound like people need to live up to my standards. I am just so exhausted by all of it. Where do I draw the line between being a respectful christian or being a doormat for people to walk on? I do know that I feel like I have failed here on all accounts. I also feel like GOD is pulling us out of this situation and He's telling us that it's time to move on. Move on to another neighborhood which will have it's ups and downs as well. I just hope the next neighborhood is neighborly. One where people actually come out of there homes and socialize with their neighbors, even if they have differences. One with people who share their struggles (which is healthy). One with people of all races and ethnic groups. One with different income levels. One that GOD wants us to stay in for more than three years. One where I won't feel like a complete failure to HIM or my neighbors.