Something To Share

Something to Share

Encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.

1 Thessalonians 5:11 (ESV)

You might be surprised, but the Amish and English communities have been working together, helping each other, supporting each other, and encouraging each other for many years. Below is a short note that was printed in the publication Gleanings in Bee Culture:

I received my second lot of goods all right. I think those ½-lb tumblers are “boss.” Every article was found just as ordered. I am well pleased with every thing. I made quite a lot of hives and sections this spring for myself and neighbors. Bees are doing very well at present. They commenced on fruit-blossom this morning. Friend R., will you send me a lot of sample copies of GLEANINGS, especially Mar. 15? You ask why that date. This is a Christianlike neighborhood, and a great many of them are keeping bees. . . . The one particular feature about that issue is in Our Homes. I have lost considerable stock this winter, and from causes for which I can not account, nor can any one else whom I have seen. I have worried over it considerably: but when I read Our Homes, I took to quite a different notion, and have quit worrying and troubling myself about things which I can not help. I hear some of my neighbors are losing in the same way, and perhaps those numbers will help them. It has helped me wonderfully.

That note was written by S. B. Miller, Amish, Iowa, April 23, 1886! I love the fact that this person was encouraged and wanted his neighbors to find the same encouragement.

Do you know someone who has faced a great loss? Maybe it is a loss that you have faced. If you have words that encouraged you or a Scripture verse that lifted you up, don’t keep it to yourself. Ask God to show you how to reach out to others. As we have faced loss and were comforted, so we can comfort others.

Dear heavenly Father, so many times another’s words have lifted my soul. Help me to be the giver and provider of such words today.