Caring for the Fallen

Caring for the Fallen 

I was given  a hanging basket of mixed million bells and petunias.  I took the hanger part of it off and sat it inside a stand.  The stand was blown over during a storm and the basket of flowers  fell to the ground.  The flower was damaged in the fall, many flower limbs broke off  and it was not the perfect beauty  it once was.  I picked up all the pieces and I put the stand back into place.  I returned the basket of flowers to the stand, arranged the flowers a bit and watered it.  A few days later somehow the stand and the flower basket fell again.  It caused even more damage to the flower.  I was disappointed that the flower had been damaged so much.   I put the stand back into place, did some things to secure the stand and put the basket of flowers inside of it.  I watered the flowers and straightened out the flower branches as best I could.  The stand somehow fell at least two or three other times during the week,  but  I finally found a way to secure it so it wouldn't fall again.  I thought my flower basket of flowers would never recover from the many damaging things that had happened to it.  The remarkable thing about this basket of flowers is that after a while , it did recover and is as beautiful as it was the day that I received it.  I think it is even more beautiful  than it was when it was new.  I was very careful to take care of my basket of flowers even though it had lost its original beauty.  I did not give up on it when it had gone through shock and change.   I enjoy it more, I think because,  I watched it survive and become even more beautiful than some of my other flower baskets  that had never fallen. 

     I'm so glad that God doesn't give up on us and also for the people who don't give up on us in life.

The people who love us no matter what.  We all mess up sometimes and fall short in some way.

Sometimes things are hard in life  but God will use those thing to make us more usable

and more like Him.

Susan Y Nikitenko

August 6th, 2017

 Proverbs 24:16 For a just man falleth seven times, and riseth up again: but the wicked shall fall into mischief.

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What Would Love Do?

What Would Love Do?

Part 1

   I asked my neighbor if she minded me telling this story about their garden.  I wasn't trying to make anything happen in order to come up with some good story,  as a matter fact I have never tried to make something  happen in order to come up with a good example.  I wanted her to know my motives were not selfish at all, but my motives were genuine.  

    

I noticed her husband poisoning the grass in their yard, but at that time I didn't know it was because he was planning on putting in a raised garden.  Then I noticed them planting the garden.  It was then that I realized he'd be planting food there. I became concerned whether or not it would be safe to eat.  I thought in my heart should I tell them what I think?  Then I decided I was just being a worry wart and that I should mind my own business.  They could of been using something, I was unaware of, to kill the grass that was safe and usable in a vegetable garden.

     

I guess a few weeks went by and the plants were growing.  Once again I was concerned the food might make them sick or kill them even.  I decided to look for information whether or not using "Round Up"  on the ground, when building a raise garden bed, was safe.  According to the information I read, using  poison like "Round Up" is not a safe thing to use when planting food.  I struggled with the idea of saying anything.  I didn't want to cause any problems with my neighbors.   

Then I had to ask myself, "What would love do?"  "Would love just keep silent, if  it meant something could hurt our neighbors?  The bible says, "Perfect love casteth out all fear."  I decided the right thing to do was to share my concerns with my neighbor, because love would warn them.

   

 When the opportunity came I asked my neighbor if I could ask her a question?  I made it clear that I wasn't trying to be a nosey neighbor, but the reason I was asking the question is because I care about them.  I was concerned for their health and well being.  I then proceeded to ask what kind of poison they used on the grass.  She told me they used Round Up.  I told her what I believed to be true, that the food might not be safe to eat.

    

I didn't have to tell them, but how could I live with myself knowing something could hurt them and not say anything.  To find out later that one of them or both of them were to become sick or die.  I would grieve miserably.  The same way spiritually, I could just stand by, never tell them that there is danger for the person who dies without Jesus.  That there is a heaven and a hell and we will go one of two places when we die.  There's no turning back then. 

Though these words might not be exactly the words that I used, this was pretty much the gist of what I said...  I asked if she would at least go online and check things out for herself and she said that she would. 

Colossians 1:28

Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus:

Susan Nikitenko

Devotional  Part 1

August 22nd, 2016 ©

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