Refreshment

“A generous man will prosper; he who refreshes others will himself be refreshed.”

– Proverbs 11:25

First of all, a big thank you for all of your support over the past weeks, in signing up to receive my posts via e-mail, following me on Twitter or liking my Facebook page. I truly am humbled that you’d want to read what I have to say. Thank you!

Today I thought that I’d update on the garden today and share my latest lesson learned. If you’re new to the blog, I planted a garden in the spring with my daughter. I thought that she’d get a lot out of it – learning about plants, harvesting their fruit, etc. But little did I know, that I’d be the one to learn so much about life through this little garden we started.

Here’s a picture that I took this morning.

The plants are all still alive, miraculously! Since this was our first try at gardening, we didn’t invest the time or money to install drip line and an automatic timer to water. We manually water almost every day.

Lately, the plants have been pretty droopy. I’ll forget to water a day here and there. And the hot Arizona sun definitely takes a toll on my little plants. Their leaves droop and wither from day after day of 100 plus degrees beating down on them. So far, our only harvest has been a few tomatoes (a few of which were rotted on the bottom) and two tiny bell peppers. Combined with my occasional lack of watering, it’s been tough for our plants to produce fruit in this heat.

Today I thought about how we can be like my plants sometimes. We go through seasons when life beats us up, withering away our hope of producing fruit or our willingness to fight and stand tall. Life can be downright hard sometimes.

Like my plants, we too need refreshment. We need someone to tend to us when the heat of life beats us down. We need someone to come and shower us with an encouraging word or deed to perk our leaves up. We need to be reminded of God’s love, manifested through the kindness of those who follow Him.

When we’re not the ones who are droopy, we need to give refreshment to someone around us who is feeling a little parched or beat down. We need to be the hands and feet of Jesus, demonstrating that love and hope are found in Him. To do this, we must have open eyes for people in need of refreshing. We are often too prideful to admit or ask for help ourselves, so we must learn to look beneath the surface in the lives of others.

I thought of a few ways that we can give refreshment to those around us:

· Sending a text, e-mail or card to someone letting him/her know that you care.

· Making a much-needed phone call to a friend and taking the time to listen.

· Offering to run errands or cook a meal for someone.

· Buying a meal or coffee for the person behind you: Once I spent more than double of my own meal for the car behind me. Not only was it a kindness to them, but it spoke volumes to the cashier who took my money for the order. (I must admit, I was a little reluctant to do this, but am so glad I obeyed God’s prompting because it was worth the cost to see the cashier’s response.)

· Offering to babysit your friends’ kids so that mom can have a day off or a couple can have a date night.

I’d love to hear your ideas and your experiences with refreshing others or being refreshed in return.

Blessings,