[Faith-talk] Daily Thought for Tuesday, July 8, 2014

[Paul]

Hello and good day to all my fellow readers you there, no matter where you know in this world.  I hope that, by God's matchless grace and His providential care, you are doing good today today.

Before I give you the answer to Sunday's weekly Bible game, here's the answer, for those of you who haven't quite figure to figurt it out yet.  It's Romans 14.

And now to the article for today.  Again, many of you have read it before, but there is something, perhaps even more, who haven't yet it previously, so for those who haven't, it here we come.  This contribution is particularly relevant for those of you who enjoy doing things in the garden.  Written by Judayann Grant, a writer from New York State, her contribution is entitled "Trumpet Vine Troubles," rendered as follows:

Every summer I faced the same gardening dilemma:  a tangle of trumpet vines that grew up and out of the center of a barberry bush.  The leggy stems created a knotty mess in the otherwise neat shrub.  I couldn't imagine why our home's former owners had planted the vine there.  Since the trumpet vines were unsightly, every summer I took the difficult task of pulling them out.

Now, along with deep red foliage and winter berries, a barberry bush is distinguished by its spiny stems.  You can't get close to it without getting jabbed by the needle-sharp thorns.  When working near the shrub, I wore my husband's thick leather gloves.  Of course, wearing the too-big gloves made it difficult to grasp the slender trumpet vines.  This yearly task was both a literal and figurative pain--until this past summer.

Numerous out-of-town guests, glandchildren coming for sleepovers and back-to-basic writing deadlines consumed my work.  Many outdoor projects fell by the wayside.  Pulling the trumpet vines from out of the barberry bush was one of my neglected summer chores.

Then one late August morning, as I stood at the kitchen window waving goodbye to my daughter, my eye caught a glimpse of orange in the barberry bush.  Going outside to investigate the splotch of color, I was shocked to see the pesky trumpet vine in full beautiful bloom.  Leafy green vines cascaded from the center of the barberry bush as they always had, but now the tip of each vine was crowned with a multitude of vibrant orange trumpet-shaped blossoms.  Left to its own, the vine did what it had struggled to do for twelve summers:  flourish and bloom.

The trumpet vine taught me a lesson about one way to approach some of life's dilemmas.  Before, when I was faced with an unwelcome difficulty, I tended to pick, pull, and fuss over the problem, aggravating only myself but everyone around me.  When I learned to step back and put some distance between the "thorn" and myself, predicaments usually worked themselves out.  And often, the results that were allowed to arrive, naturally were far more perfect than any I could have tried to force.

Who knows? Maybe the former owners deliberately planted the trumpet vine in the midst of that barberry bush in order to bring a touch of beauty to an otherwise prickly situation.

And there you have Mrs. Grant's situation, which I trust was a blessing to you.

And now may the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob just keep us safe, individually and collectively, in these last days in which we live.  Lord willing, tomorrow there will be another daily thought for you.  Your Christian friend and brother, Paul