Diary of a Blessed Garden - Our Story Of Thanksgiving
NOTE FROM NICK: My family has SO much to be thankful for this Thanksgiving. It has been a tragic year for us. But its also been a year of miraculous preservation and recovery.
As my Mom describes in today's post, my Dad's life hung by a thread after a terrible car accident. But after his phenomenal recovery, we realized that even though God takes care of the big things, He also looks after the little things. Things like Mom and Dad's garden, which was neglected during those hot & dry weeks in the hospital.
While we are giving thanks for this story that has such a wonderful ending, I have done a lot of thinking about the times when the outcome is very different.
We realize that life on this earth doesn't always turn out the way we would choose. Not everyone survives a bad car accident as my Dad did. Sometimes we deal with terrible consequences from bad decisions that we have made. But other times it was simply out of our control, and we struggle with "Why".
I wish I could explain "why" every bad thing happens on this earth, but I can't. If we could explain all these terrible things, perhaps we would end up trying to justify them--and I don't believe there is any justification or explanation for evil.
So, what do we do when the outcome is grim? When faced with disappointing circumstances that we are unable to fix or explain, I think it helps to look back on the past and remember those special moments...the ones where Heaven came near to touch this earth and work a mighty deliverance in our behalf. These experiences give us the courage to face times when life is hard. And they teach us that even though bad things happen to good people, God is working to somehow turn each disaster into a blessing--if we will only let Him do it.
But when a tragic story has a wonderful outcome, you simply have to rejoice in it and give thanks! It reminds us that the Lord still reigns, and His hand still intervenes in the affairs of men--even the little things...
...like my parent's garden. Continue reading
Snow Plowing For Newbies
I’ve been handling snow removal on 1 to 3-mile roads in a heavy snow area for many years. It’s almost second nature now, but it wasn’t always that way.
I quit!
I want to share with you a few old words of wisdom that prompted me to make this decision. It's a quick excerpt from an old book on agriculture that was given to me. However, this was the inspiration that caused me to sit back and say, 'I quit'.