Classes and Collapses!

 Classes and Collapses!

 

My niece just posted on our phones telling us that her three boys started school this week. The oldest is a junior in high school; the middle boy is in 7^th grade (junior high); and the youngest is in 4^th grade (elementary). She will have three sons in three different schools for the next two years! It makes an old woman tired just thinking about it! Have a feeling that the boys’ mom feels just about the same!

 

Meanwhile, this part of North Central Texas is sweltering in the heat wave called summer. This weekend coming up is supposed to go from 104 to 108 the following Tuesday. Red Adair could put out an oil well fire, but Dear Hearts, this part of Texas needs an ice berg or something to cool things off around here. The air outside actually burns my skin!

 

Sprayed more water under the deck for the hens and gave them some more wheat. As soon as they got a few bites of wheat each, here they came back to the deck out of the heat. How they keep laying eggs is amazing! Pretty soon they will all be molting and putting on new feathers and dropping the old ones. It will look like a feather pillow explosion out there!

 

Have seen several posts on FB suggesting that parents talk to their children about bullies. The type of people who are bullies has never changed much over the years as most of us know. Usually, the bullies at school have bullies at home in one way or another. Mean kids come from mean parenting. Negative statements from parents leave behind a poisonous residue one way or another. But then, maybe Adam and Eve were not bullies to anyone when Cain felt so jealous of Abel. Maybe it is just that “an evil man cannot endure the sight of righteousness in another.” It is the attitude that makes a man/woman acceptable in God’s eyes—not the “thing,” the sacrifice itself. “And to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love his neighbor as himself, is more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.” Mark 12:33

 

It seems that not only a broken spirit and contrite heart are pleasing to God, but the offerings of praise to His name. He expects us to exercise kindness without even having to consider what we are doing. Remind your children to sit with those who are alone. Offer a smile or compliment to those without a smile.

 

Once on this old hill, a fig tree grew in the pasture below the house. It finally died for whatever reason. Vivian asked me to walk with her to the old tree to see if it had any fruit. It only had sticks in the ground and nothing came from the roots, not even shoots. It had been surrounded by Johnson grass and not given any water. It no longer is there, even the dry sticks. But for some reason, a young fig tree has come up in my yard. How it came to be there is truly uncertain. Maybe a bird ate a fig in someone’s yard and the seed sprouted from the castings of the bird. Whether or not the fig lives until it is old enough to have buds and figs is not truly up to me. But watching that fig grow and produce leaves makes me happy. God plants His mercy in every heart eventually. Let us tend to the love that produces mercy for others.

 

Rest well, my friends. You are loved.