RENEW YOUR STRENGTH

I want to share my experience with you hoping it can be
an encouragement to you.

I have what they call "Aplastic Anemia".   My body just plain
and simple quit making blood a little over a year ago.  God in
his mercy has allowed the medicines to help and my body
seems to be making some blood now.  But  I am still dependent
on frequent transfusions.

But it is "strength" that we want to consider right now.  I lost all
my strength with this sickness.  For a while I was so weak I could
not get out of my chair with out pulling on something or someone
helping me.  Of course any work was out of the question, period.

BUT -

God said,
"...they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength,..."
-(Isaiah 40:31 RSV)

Some versions use the word "trust" instead of "wait".  Take your
choice.  And I would stress that I do not feel God gave me that as
a promise.  Simply, he said it.  And I tried to wait, trust, walk with
God looking for an increase in strength.

Strength was very slow in coming, if any at all.   So slow that I was
complaining to God about it.  But, a short time back I got more serious
with God over the issue.  You know, "God, where is this strength you
promised?"

Shortly after that inside of just a few days I felt like my old self.  Did
not feel sickly at all.  No I have not regained all my strength back - yet.

The image above is a garden bed I am working on.  You cannot see
how deep it is.  But what you see in it is old damp horse manure.  It
was loaded the other night and made my little old truck squat down
like a dog doing something on the lawn.  I had to drive home in only
the lower gears.   It was too heavy to get into one of the high gears.

The point I'm making.  Yesterday morning in about two hours I unloaded
that stuff, a shove full at a time, into that garden bed.  Yes, it pretty much
wore me out for the day.  But even two months ago I could not have
thought about doing that little bit.

It's God I'm thanking.    Have you lost your strength?  Turn to the one who
gives life and strength to start with.  Jesus Christ.  Get real close and know
him personally very well.  You will not be sorry.

SECRETE OF RENEWED STRENGTH

"Have you not known?

Have you not heard, that the everlasting God,

the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth,

faints not, neither is weary?

there is no searching of his understanding.

He gives power to the faint;

and to them that have no might

he increases strength.

Even the youths will faint and be weary,

and the young men will utterly fall:

But those who wait upon the LORD

will renew their strength;

they will mount up with wings like eagles;

they will run, and not be weary;

and they will walk, and not faint."

(Isaiah 40:28-31 AKJV)

RENEWED HOPE FROM GARLIC

I AM NOT A GARDENER.  I AM NOT A GARDENER.

I AM NOT A GARDENER.

However,

Since retirement I have been "playing" with a few plants.

(O.K.  Killed a bunch of plants.)

My favorite is garlic because it is harder for me to kill.

I have been playing with garlic for four or five years.

As a result I have learned two or three things about garlic,

if I could just remember what it was.

This year I put out several different kinds of garlic I

wanted to try.  [I know.  It works best for me in the fall.

But I am not always in the mood in the fall.]

However due to the drought, it looked like a complete loss

for several that good money had been paid for.

While walking around the "forsaken" garden plots

one day - Praise God - I found these plants.

The top picture is an "elephant" garlic that somehow

survived.

The above picture is the result of cloves brought in from

Bangkok Thailand, and promptly killed - all by myself.

This one is "Fred's" garlic.

Fred has been dead for years now.  But in a gardening effort about

20 years ago he gave me a garlic start.  He did not know what kind

of garlic it was.  Only that it was, Good.

Of course I soon gave up on my gardening efforts, including the 

garlic.  But after about 20 years of total neglect, in the bushes,

 under a tree, here is some "Fred's" garlic trying to go again.

Praise God.

Through this God drew my attention to the apostle Paul's comment.

"For this reason we never become discouraged.  Even though our

physical being is gradually decaying, yet our spiritual being

is renewed day after day.  And this small and temporary

trouble we suffer will bring us a tremendous and eternal glory,

much greater than the trouble.  For we fix our attention, 

not on things that are seen, but on things that are unseen.

What can be seen lasts only for a time, but what cannot

be seen lasts forever."

(2 Corinthians 4:16-18 GNB)