Previous Challenge Entry (Level 1 – Beginner)
Topic: Vision (08/03/06)
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TITLE: Humble Beginnings | Previous Challenge Entry
By Jeremy Kirby
08/08/06 -
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“Well I’ll be!” he said exasperated and chilled.
That log wasn’t there; he was clean out of wood for his fire, and out of cornmeal and flour in his cupboards. So he lumbered to his rocking chair and sat in front of the cold, empty fireplace and covered his lap depressingly with a raggedy quilt and waited for winter to arrive.
The jagged, snow covered peaks scraped the sky in every direction you turned. Winter always came early to this impoverished little town nestled high in the mountains of Western Europe.
Its people were always about their business of working and trading goods to earn an extra dollar. No race of men or people worked harder than they, if they weren’t deep within the caves of the mountains mining rocks they were hauling trees from the forest to sell for firewood or build new houses or outbuildings that they were unwaveringly convinced they needed.
All the while the men were out working the women were doing household chores, sweeping and dusting and skinning the meat taken on the latest hunt. Or doing odd jobs here and there around town so they may add to their savings accounts, and saving is what they loved to do.
All of the people of that small village saved their money quite industriously; there were no people in all the land that could save money better than they. Yet there seemed to be a problem.
All of their toils and labors and their ingenious way of handling money brought them nowhere. For every time they sat down to eat, there wasn’t enough. Every time they needed to draw from their savings, there weren’t adequate funds, and every time they pulled on their socks their toes ripped through the ends! But still they carried on, even harder than before, they couldn’t recognize the err of their ways.
In a corncrib at the edge of town lived a grandmother and her little grandchild, every Sunday they walked to the stone cathedral to worship their creator. This humble granddaughter always wept because they were the only two that ever graced the doors of the temple. People were too busy to care about the church anymore; they worked so hard and had so little, which must be God’s fault, so they ignored the call on their hearts.
That was the err of their ways, the people of the land neglected God’s house, so He neglected theirs.
As winter swept through the sleepy vale, may became cold, many got sick, and some died. The people’s work was put to a halt and they became evermore helpless as the snow piled ever deeper.
Fires were going out all over town, but a new fire kindled in the heart of the Christian daughter as she watched the tragedies begin to take over. Burning hotter and hotter with Holy anger she could be stayed no longer.
Determined, she put on her black boots and threw her scarf around her neck, she pulled on her red knit stocking cap and gloves and door to door she went, carrying the gospel of Jesus Christ and the message of hope that this dying town needed.
Finally, as the sun set behind those jagged mountains, she reached the other end of town and had no more houses to evangelize. So cold and tired, she turned back to her grandmother’s place at the broken down corncrib. As she spun her body around she beheld open doors, and one by one the people of this once money-loving town trudged their way to the stone temple.
As a town the and as an entire people they repented of their ways, and God heard them. The fire that burned in that girls’ heart caught on fire the whole village. The people lacked no more and industriously, they built the Church instead of bank accounts.
The vision of one humble person, obedient to God changed the ways and future of this sleepy mountain town, what would happen if all of us were obedient to our visions?
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