When my husband and I moved to
Charleston four years ago, it was very important to me to bring some of our
flowers, especially the daylilies, from our home in St. Louis. The duplex unit that happened to open up just
before we were able to move is unique.
One of the first tenants moved here from a farm. She did extensive landscaping around the back
patio and to the side of it, something I have not seen on other units owned by
the same couple in our neighborhood. She even used
interestingly shaped and colored rocks from her farm to serve as a border of a ten
foot square area for three burning bushes and other plantings. Except for the bushes, it had become barren
in that spot by the time we arrived, thus providing the perfect spot for those
precious flowers, some of which had grown in my parents back yard years ago.
What has been a wonderful blessing
here has also become a concern since my husband moved on to the place prepared for
him two years ago. I have prayed, at
times with some impatience, for a student to help me do the things I can’t do
in this God-given haven for my flowers. Almost
on a whim, last spring, as I passed by the check in table to exit the EIU Rec
Center, I asked a nice young student if he would be interested in doing some
yard work for me to earn some extra money.
And that was the beginning of God’s exceedingly abundant answer to my
prayers.
Jaime has probably come more than
ten times now. Usually, I work along
with him in the yard. Being a person who
likes to ask questions and get to know someone, I have become not only well
acquainted with him but we have even become close friends. With a bit of amazement in my voice, I have described him to others,
adding that he seems to actually like me.
Now I don’t suffer from a terrible self-esteem problem, but for this
student to become almost like a kind grandson to me is definitely more than I
was expecting.
Working with flowers has been
something new and interesting to Jaime as he has lived in apartments in Chicago
all his life. He came to Eastern on a
track scholarship and is covering his own expenses very responsibly. He makes good grades and is regarded highly by
his coach and others. For a college
student, he is a mature young man and has a very cute, athletic
girlfriend. He greets me with a hug when
he arrives and gives me one as he leaves.
An aunt gave him a car in recent months, so he even drives to my home and
arrives on time. I tease him about
becoming his agent now that three of my neighbors have hired him to work for
them, too.
Yes, this is what an exceedingly
abundant answer to prayer looks like.
May it be an encouragement to us, as Paul intended his words to be, to raise our
expectations in what the wonderful power of God can do.
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