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It is in blessing others that we are blessed and it is in helping others
that our hearts become full with joy. One truly hasn't experienced the
fullness of joy that is received in one's heart until they do an unselfish
act of love towards someone else that is in need. Jesus said freely we
have received and freely we should give. When we came into this world, we
came with nothing and when it comes time to leave this world, we will also
leave with nothing. The only thing that we will have to show for our life
is what we did to be helping and caring towards those who were in need
around us. (Philippians 2:2) (Matthew 10:8) (1 Timothy 6:7) (Galatians 6:10)
Jesus left us as His example on the earth to do good works and glorify our
Father in heaven. Be encouraged to take the initiative to be helping
towards those in need around you and you will see how God will reward you
in kind and fill your heart with joy that is unspeakable. (Matthew 5:16)
I hope this message inspires and challenges your heart to show the same
love and care towards those hurting and in need around you.
LUTHER’S LUMBER
Luther had been home from the war nearly four months, now, and worked at
the Carnation Milk plant in Mt. Vernon where his wife, Jenny, worked.
This morning he was in the little Miller cafe next door to the post office
waiting for the mail to be “put up”. Sitting across from him in the booth
was his old friend, Fred Hill. They were discussing the war which was still
going on in the Pacific Theatre. Recruitment posters still lined the walls
of the little cafe.
Fred had not been in the service, because when the war started in 1941, his
parents had been in very poor health; his father with a bad heart, and his
mother with cancer. He was needed at home to care for them and operate the
farm. His parents had since died, and the farm was now his -- his and Maggie's.
When Luther, Fred's best friend since childhood, had flown over Miller in
the B-17, and when the bodies of the Hobbs boys and Billie Martin had been
shipped home, and when Perry came home with hooks where his hands should
have been, Fred felt guilty. He felt he had not done his part for the war
effort, and in his own eyes, he was diminished.
But today, it was Luther who seemed depressed. Fred asked him what was
bothering him. “You seem down in the dumps, today, Luther,” he said. “I
can't see what could be botherin' you. You came through the war without a
scratch, you got a beautiful wife and a baby on the way, you got a good
job, what's the problem?”
“Jenny's mother is in bad shape,” said Luther. “We're going to have to take
her in, and with the baby coming we don't have the room.”
“Can't build a room on?” asked Fred.
“No lumber available,” said Luther. “I've tried here, Mt. Vernon,
Springfield, Joplin, and there won't be any more shipments for the
duration. Who knows how long that will be?”
“Tried Will's sawmill?”
“Yeah, but he just saws oak, and it's green. The bay will be here in
August, and we can't wait for the lumber to dry. Besides, you can't build a
whole room out of oak, anyway.”
“Wouldn't want to,” said Fred. “Reckon the mail's up?”
“Probably.”
The two young men left the cafe and went into the post office next door.
Buford Patten, the postmaster, had raised the door to the service window,
signaling that the mail was in the boxes. Luther and Fred retrieved their
mail and left -- Luther to work at Mt. Vernon, and Fred back to the farm.
That evening, Fred finished the milking and sat on the front porch with
Maggie. “Days are gettin' longer,” he said. “Man could get half a day's
work done after five o'clock.”
“Better put your Pa's car up,” said Maggie. “Radio says rain tonight.”
Fred's father had bought a new 1941 Ford just before his first heart
attack, and the car was now Fred's. He had built a new garage for it just
before Christmas, and tonight he congratulated himself on getting it built
before the lumber ran out. He didn't even know it had, until Luther told
him this morning.
Fred drove the car into the new garage and latched the door. He walked back
around the house to the front porch. Something was nagging at his mind, but
he couldn't define it. He shook it off and sat on the porch with Maggie
until darkness fell. They could see heat lightning in the West, and the
wind started to rise. They went in the house to listen to the news of the
war on the radio, and shortly went to bed.
The next morning, Fred again drove his pickup into Miller for the mail. The
air was fresh and clear now, the rain having washed it clean. The sun was
shining, and he felt good. When he reached the cafe, Luther was there ahead
of him.
“Still haven't found any lumber, I guess?”
“No, I asked everybody at work, and nobody knows of any. I don't know what
we'll do.”
Now the nagging in Fred's mind defined itself. “I found the lumber for
you,” he said.
“You did? Where?” Luther was delighted.
“Fella I know. He'll let you have it free, you bein' a veteran and all. He
doesn't seem to want you to know who he is, so I'll have to haul it in for
you. It's good lumber, fir and pine, cut different lengths and got nails in
it, but that's no problem. Tell you what, you get your foundation poured,
and I'll bring you a pickup load everyday and help you build it. We'll have
it done before the baby gets here.”
“That's a friend for you,” Luther said to himself, as he drove to Mt.
Vernon. That evening he came home with sacks of cement in his pickup.
Luther dug and poured the foundation, and when it was ready for the
footings, he told Fred.
“Fine,” said Fred, “I'll bring the first load over and be there when you
get home from work.”
Fred appeared every evening with a load of lumber, and the two men worked
until it was too dark to see. Sometimes Maggie came too, and the women sat
in the house listening to the radio or talking about babies or Jenny's
ailing mother, their sentences punctuated by the sound of the hammers outside.
Over the next few weeks the new room took shape and was finished and
roofed. “Where did you get the shingles?” asked Luther.
“Same fella,” answered Fred. “He's got all kinds of stuff.”
Luther didn't push. Lots of older folks liked to help out the young
veterans anonymously. It was common.
It was done! The women fixed the room up inside, and moved Jenny's mother
in. The men went back about their business.
At supper one evening, Luther told Jenny he would like to do something nice
for Fred and Maggie, since they had been so helpful with the new room. “I
know,” said Jenny, brightly. “Maggie likes those big wooden lawn chairs
like Aunt Birdie has on her lawn. Why not get them a couple of those?”
“Good idea,” agreed Luther, and the next Saturday he bought a couple at
Callison's hardware and loaded them into his pickup.
When he got out to Fred's farm, there was no one home, Fred and Maggie
having gone into Springfield, shopping. “That's ok,” Luther thought, “I'll
just put them in the garage in case it rains.”
He drove around the house and into the driveway that led to Fred's new garage.
The garage was gone. Only the foundation remained to show where it had been.
Luther put the chairs on the front porch and drove home, tears in his eyes.
The two men are now in their mid-seventies, and are still the best of
friends. They never spoke of the incident. How could they?
There was nothing to say.
By Joe Edwards
Read and meditate on these scriptures:
1 John 3:16-18 “Hereby perceive we the love of God, because He laid down
His life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But
whoso hath this world’s good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth
up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?
My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed
and in truth.”
Galatians 6:2-4 “Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of
Christ. For if a man think himself to be something, when he is nothing, he
deceiveth himself. But let every man prove his own work, and then shall he
have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another.”
1 Corinthians 12:26-28 “And whether one member suffer, all the members
suffer with it; or one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it.
Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular. And God hath set
some in the church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers,
after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments,
diversities of tongues.”
All of these scriptures can be found in the King James Version Bible.
Today’s Selected Poem: EVEN IF
Click here to read --- http://www.Godswork.org/enpoem186.htm
Today’s Selected Testimony: SAVED IN CHILDBEARING
Click here to read --- http://www.Godswork.org/testimony111.htm
In Christ’s Service,
Dwayne Savaya
God’s Work Ministry |
