when you're green...

well my dear ones,

A good long time ago, back when I was a teen,

I worked in my uncle's shop.

My uncle had been an auto mechanic,

who one day decided to start his own business

and open up a lawnmower repair place.

My aunt cried, and said they'd starve;

but eventually he expanded into tractors,

chain saws, and the like

and ran a pretty successful

power equipment business.

My uncle was a tough business man;

he worked really hard,

but he played hard, too.

And he tried to make the coffee breaks

at his shop a time of teachable moments

for his son and me and a crew of other

young guys in whom he tried to instill

some of the life lessons he'd learned.

Basically,

he was trying to do the Ben Franklin thing,

and get us to skip over a lot of our own

mistakes by learning from his.

I can't say it always worked out,

at least not in my own case,

yet I did learn a thing or two

that stuck with me over the years.

One thing he must have said 100 times was,

"When you're green you're growing;

 when you're ripe, you're rotting."

I've held onto that down through the years,

and I believe I see what he was saying.

I've seen plenty of people,

even the chronologically young,

become old and jaded

when they stagnate,

when they say to themselves,

"OK, this is it; this is all I will ever be."

It's very easy to fall into that trap,

that mindset,

and limit ourselves and our future possibilities.

Yet the God who created all things

is a God of infinite possibilities;

in the eyes of God,

we have infinite worth;

and we weren't made for mediocrity,

but to strive for excellence.

So if you feel like you're stagnating,

ask God to show you a bigger plan for your life.

The best way to stay green

is to realize that our best days

are yet to come.

Have a great week!

grace, peace, and love to you,


dave

the weak

well my dear ones,

A short time ago,

I started being able to pick up

a small feral cat, Nadine,

who was too elusive to capture,

so I stared luring her with treats.

But as I was about to put her in a carrier

to bring her to the vet,

my wife cautioned that she looked thinner

than she had been, and that she

might have a kitty under the shed.

As it turned out she had four...

http://theeverencouragingword.blogspot.com/2012/05/nadine-with-her-kitties.html

She moved them around, as mama kitties do,

till she felt they were safe.

But one night, I noticed that

she had 3 kitties with her,

and I could here the 4rth one crying;

I could see it in the old nest;

its eyes were crusted shut,

and I was afraid she was going

to abandon it, and leave it as unviable,

and not bring it to the new nest

with the other 3 kittens.

That may be the "natural" way,

however, as Nature is broken since the Fall,

I saw no reason to let nature take its course.

Long ago, when I started training in Kung Fu,

our instructor taught us something

that I was to hear repeated in many schools

of several different martial arts,

namely that,

"It is the duty of the strong

to protect the weak."

Not too surprisingly, this oriental saying

even has biblical support;

in his letter to the Romans,

the apostle Paul writes,

"We then that are strong

ought to bear the infirmities of the weak,

and not to please ourselves."



I didn't have it within me

to leave a small crying kitten to die.

So, I took the little spud



http://theeverencouragingword.blogspot.com/2012/05/kitty-with-eyes-closed.html



and washed its eyes till it could see,



http://theeverencouragingword.blogspot.com/2012/05/kitty-with-eyes-open.html



and then put it back with Mama,

who accepted it into the new nest.








Except for the one gray kitty

(who I think is a girl kitty)


http://theeverencouragingword.blogspot.com/2012/05/little-gray-kitty.html


the other three triplets

often wake up with one or both eyes closed;

yet they have fallen into the morning

routine of,

"Our Mama gives us milk,

then the big stupid kitty without fur

washes our little eyes

so we can see to find the kitty food."



(they have little fat tummies now

 and are playful and happy together)

http://theeverencouragingword.blogspot.com/2012/05/one-happy-family.html




Do I think it actually matters,

like matters to God,

that even on this small scale

the natural was set aside

to fulfill the principle

of the strong protecting the weak?



Yes; I do think so.

I think nothing any of us does

to help and protect the weak

will ever go unnoticed.



And there will always be those

who are weaker and poorer than us

and who are in need of our help,

even with the smallest of things.



May we have the will and heart

to help them as we are able.

Have a great week!

grace, peace, and love to you,


dave

one happy family

little gray kitty

kitty with eyes open

kitty with eyes closed

Nadine with her kitties

hope

 

well my dear ones,

The other night, my wife and I

watched a movie called, "To Save a Life,"

that dealt small cutting, depression

and teen suicide.

It was a good movie

and ended on a hopeful note,

but the thing I liked best

was that they gave a website

where you could post you own story

to help, to lift up others,

to give them a piece of hope.

So, if you have a life changing story

that you think might help someone else,

you can post it here:

http://tosavealifemovie.com/stories/

However, they do limit you to 175 words.

To some, that may seem like a lot;

perhaps I'm just a bit too verbose;

I had to do six re-writes to get it that short,

to render it down to this:

http://theeverencouragingword.blogspot.com/2012/05/you-matter.html

I couldn't sleep that night till I posted that;

I felt that the kindly grandmotherly angelic lady,

the counselor who saved my life,

and got me re-calibrated,

would have wanted me to so do.

Yet 175 words isn't even enough to do

justice to me describing how cool she was.

As I noted once before,

I won't even go and look up her earthly name

as it would have no real meaning;

it would tend to make her seem like a mere person

when she was so much more than that.

Do I believe in actual angels?

Well, when I was in a pit of despair

the likes of which I pray none of you

will ever have to suffer through,

she handed me hope.

(across these many years,

 I remember it like yesterday

 because hope is such a powerful thing)

So yes, I believe in angels.

And if you are ever in need like I was,

I pray God sends such an angel in your path

to give you a hope and a future.

Have a great week!

grace, peace, and love to you,



dave




"Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares."


      --- Hebrews 13: 2

You matter!

Depressed at 29, I believed in nothing, and felt like nothing mattered.  Challenged to research it, I became convinced that the Resurrection is the centerpiece of history, and  gave my heart to Jesus.  Still, a year later, I got hit by such a pit of blackness that I felt like I must be beyond all hope.  

A counselor reached me with this thought: "Depression is a disease; it can be cured; and the God who created the universe thinks about YOU…and smiles."  And she gave me this hope: "For I know the plans I have for you," says the Lord, "Plans for good and not for evil, to give you a hope and a future." (Jeremiah 29:11) 

I rode that verse to victory over my depression.  Now I work in a puppet ministry for 3-year-olds, teaching them what many teens and adults need to learn:

"God made you; God loves you; and Jesus wants to be your friend forever."

 Why?  Because YOU matter! 

gardens

*at the edge of the woods and his own backyard

 Dave sits in one of his wife's gardens

 as he talks with his mentor and muse, Titania*

Dave: *looking from garden to lawn*

      "I've always thought lawns

      to be rather strange things.

      "I mean, power mowers didn't even exist

      until 1830; then in 1868,

      Frederick Olmsted invented

      the American lawn concept,

      and in 1870, Frank Scott decided

      to promulgate this idea on a grand scale.

      I've read that 50,000 square miles

      of this country is covered

      in manicured lawns."

      *tries to hand her an article*

[which can be seen here:

http://michaelpollan.com/articles-archive/why-mow-the-case-against-lawns/ ]

Titania: *waving away the article*

      "Pah!  I knew them both,

      and the span of a century

      has lessened their arrogance

      not a whit.

      "Look at that border..."

http://theeverencouragingword.blogspot.com/2012/05/border.html

      "...on one side

      flowers grow as God intends;

      on the other, you fertilize grass to grow

      only that you might smash it down

      before it can ever come to bloom;

      better would it be fed to goats and calves;

      lawns are but an abuse of your free will,

      your vain attempt to feel as if

      you can control Nature,

      when only Nature's God controls it.

      "Consider rather what your wife does...

      "All life began in a garden;

      your wife listens to the trees

      as they whisper the faint reverberations

      of the Song of Songs

      when the One sang all things into being,

      and the angels, firstborn of all Creation,

      picked up the melody

      and clapped their hands

      and sang with joy.

      "Her heart hears the echoes of the Song,

      hence, she partners with the Creator

      to try and get back to the simplicity

      of the garden.

      "And for that,

      she is rewarded with this beauty."

http://theeverencouragingword.blogspot.com/2012/05/beauty.html

      *Once again, the Faerie Queen

      speaks to Dave of the things that were,

      the things that are,

      and the things that must yet

      come to pass*

beauty

border