By the time I was ten years old we had moved nine times. We were first in the New York City area, then in the Panama Canal Zone during World War II, then back to New York City, then to Pittsburgh, PA. When I was ten we moved to Braintree, MA.
That summer my mother signed me up for a girl’s summer camp in my neighborhood. She thought it would help me meet new friends. But the girls were already friends with each other. And I was different. I spoke with a different accent. I didn’t know the songs they liked to sing or many of the games they played. I didn’t go to their church. One day one of the girls couldn’t find her lunch and she said I stole it. I had no friend to vouch for me that I didn’t take it. I didn’t want to go back the next day but my mother said I had to go.
I never forgot that summer when I was ten. I think our Gracious God was looking out for me, because as fate would have it, the girl who said I stole her lunch later became one of my very best friends. It is hard to be an outsider, to be different, to have no friends, to be a stranger.
But it was a good experience to have when you are ten.
Gracious loving God, help us to turn strangers into friends. Amen