We have visited lots of family and friends this summer. Be warned! If you invite us, we will come! And when you invite the Byrds, you get 6 or 7 mouths to feed and lots of air mattresses to blow up. I refer to the 7 of us as a Wide Load. As in, "It's not often that people are willing to invite our Wide Load to stay."

We're always thrilled to come for a few days to visit. When we go to visit, Wide Load that we are, I am well aware that it might be the last time we're ever invited. Crossing the line from Good Guest to Bad Company is quick. Bad Company sits on a cotton sofa with a Sharpie marker open in his back pocket. Bad Company clogs the toilet...and keeps using it. Bad Company eats brownies in the bedroom and grinds the crumbs into white sheets. Bad Company lets inside dogs out, picks her nose at the dinner table, and brings a violent stomach flu to the whole host family.

Not that we did any of those things this summer. These are just some of the things I have nightmares about.

Therefore, like the national parks, I have adopted a policy with my family. I feel this policy will make us stellar visitors who will score repeat invitations.

"Take only pictures, leave only footprints."

We try to be Good Guests who are delightful and inobtrusive. We bring gifts, help with dishes, and share towels. We come in with one bag for 7 people and we bring our own pillows. 7 of us can and will stay in one room.

But this morning, leaving a relative's house, I realized I might be more than polite. I might actually be a lunatic. As I wiped down the bathroom, started a wash load of sheets and towels and packed up trash in my suitcase to take home with me, I felt foolish. I was trying to make sure that there was no trace that I had stopped there. No kidding, not even a tissue in the trash can. Gracious guest or nut case?

Can you relate? Have you ever tried to leave a place without even a single indication that you were there? Perhaps you're doing it...and you're not even aware of it.

For instance, do you send your kids to school but refuse to get involved? Or maybe you go to church but don't join a small group or Sunday school class. Perhaps you live in a neighborhood but don't attend the cook-out, exchange Christmas cards or call your neighbors by name. Perhaps, like me visiting, you come and go, without leaving a trace.

Before moving to Roanoke, my family had moved every two years. In fact, we lived five different places our first five years of marriage. We thought we'd stop by Roanoke for a short time as well. Therefore, just passing through, we acted as visitors, not permanent residents. 8 years later, I realize this was a mistake.

I greet the librarian and mailman and pharmacist.....but not by name. I didn't get their names 8 1/2 years ago, thinking we'd know each other briefly. Now, almost a decade later, it's a bit embarassing to say, "I didn't catch your name." Therefore, we could leave tomorrow and there wouldn't be record of us being here. We'd leave without a trace. It's no way to live.

See, we're called to love our neighbors (and our hostesses) as ourselves. Is it possible to love without leaving a trace? I'm starting to realize we can't.

Sometimes leaving a mark is messy and complicated and even painful. We disappoint others or they disappoint us. But that's what love is. We will still leave footprints......on hearts. And always, of course, take lots of pictures.


1 John 3:18
Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.