Month: September 2019

When I got home from work yesterday, I was exhausted. It had been a super long week at work. We had constant visitors in our office and very little downtime and even though I had been in bed at 9:00 the night before, I was still bone tired.

The first thing I noticed when I walked in the door and gazed through my window overlooking my backyard, was that my hummingbird feeders needed my attention. One was empty and the other one was full of ants. They had been hanging for a few days and I knew the sugar water had most likely turned sour.

Our hummingbirds have gone from twelve or so constantly fighting for a drink, to around four. The vast majority have headed south for the winter and those left are the stragglers. I debated whether or not I should change the water.

I didn’t see any of the tiny birds; maybe the last ones had flown away too. I had so many other things that needed doing. Would my tiny little labor of love even matter?

But, a little nudge tugged at my heart. What if it did matter? What if those stragglers needed a little boost to get to where they needed to go? What if I could assist them on their journey in some small way?

Reluctantly, I went outside and grabbed one feeder and then the other and washed them out and refilled them.

Almost immediately, I had a customer. A few minutes later, there were two.

I immediately felt guilty that I had thought about not feeding them. They clearly still needed my help. It was completely inconsequential to the remaining hummers, that they weren’t part of the large group who had moved on already.

They were still hungry.

I thought about those stragglers for the rest of the evening. I thought about how we sometimes get weary of doing something that we felt so strongly called to do at one time, that we begin to wonder if our efforts even matter.

Sometimes our big ideas give us big results in the beginning and when they start dwindle, we question the calling in the first place.

We forget that God’s economy is so very different than our own.

But, those two hummingbirds reminded me that we should never stop doing Kingdom work. We should never stop sharing, serving, loving or listening. It doesn’t matter how many we reach. It doesn’t matter if they are young or old. All that matters is that we do our small part and let Jesus do the rest.

Perhaps you needed reminding too.

Have an awesome day!

Wendy 🙂

I recently discovered that my fig tree had produced a second round of fruit. Needless to say, I was delighted. We have had that tree for a decade or more and it wasn’t until this year, that it produced a lot of fruit. But, several weeks later, when it produced a second round, I was amazed.

As I popped one of the figs into my mouth, I instantly thought of my cousin Leonard. He had a gigantic fig tree in his yard and he always let my sister and I eat those figs. He went up to heaven years ago, but that fig made me think of the wonderful times I had with him and his wife, Janice.

As I walked a cross the yard to pick up a limb that had fallen, I noticed a muscadine vine climbing on my fence. Unlike the fig tree that I had watered and fertilized, it was wild. I didn’t plant it, but it still had some pretty purple berries on it. I picked a few and took one to my daughter.

As we both ate one, I commented how the taste of muscadines always reminds me of picking scuppernongs with my mama and my sister. We used to spend hours every fall, harvesting them and eating as many as we picked.
My daughter commented how they reminded her of her Mommy Dot, my hubby’s mother. I had forgotten about her huge scuppernong vine, but my grown daughter hadn’t. Mommy Dot had long ago gone to be with Jesus, just like Janice and Leonard, but I’ve no doubt she would be thrilled to be remembered through that sweet fruit.

I thought of hose figs and the muscadines long after my daughter went back to school. I thought about how we often work so long and hard, that we begin to wonder if we will ever see fruit and then sometimes, unexpectedly, we have more than we know what to do with.

But, I was also reminded that sometimes, we get blessed with fruit that we didn’t even plant, like those muscadines. That fruit is something to be thankful for as well.

But, I think what stuck with me most, is that we are remembered by the fruit we help to grow and harvest long after we are gone. Is it sweet like patience, kindness, forgiveness and love or is it bitter like anger, pride and selfishness?

The beautiful truth is, we get to choose. Some figs and muscadines reminded me. Perhaps you needed reminding too.

Have an awesome day!
Wendy 🙂