Saturday, November 13, 2010

What a Widow Wants

You'd think that doing a day of heavy yard work for a complete stranger would be no fun. Well, honestly, to get myself out of the bed, I did have to re-focus a little bit because it did not sound like fun at all. But we had been imploring and cajoling our group of young marrieds for weeks:

"Remember the charge given to us in James 1:27 -- 'Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows...'"

A sweet widow from our church had asked if anyone would mind helping her clear out a few fallen limbs from her yard. We put a date on the calendar and waited to see who would participate...

As truck, after car, after truck pulled up her street that fine, freezing morning, our widow covered her mouth and began to cry. I had to fight back a few tears myself because I didn't know what to expect. There were over 20 happy faces that came willing and ready to work! Thank God for that because there were more than 'a few limbs' involved. When all was said and done, some manpower and a couple of chainsaws...

 

...turned into this.

 

And an acre of thick leaves and overgrown vines and shrubbery...

 

...turned into this.

 

We were exhausted. And at church the next morning we were all laughing at how sore we were! Laughing. Which was just more of what we'd had from the day before because, guess what? It was FUN!!
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3 comments:

Anonymous said...

You have just described the body of Christ at its finest - being faithful to the calling.
Love,
Mom

Y said...

I was widowed at the age of 27 when my kids were two and one. If 20 people had showed up out of the goodness of their hearts to help me do anything I think I would have cried too. Good for you for putting the Word into practice.

P.S. I stumbled here by accident but read on because I was intrigued by the title.

Robin said...

That is awesome. It's especially wonderful that you guys are teaching Josh at his age what it means to give of yourself. Action wins out over words.