Where I grew up it was a small farming community, sure we had a 2 yr junior college but, it took combining several small towns to make up a high school that had at least 400 students. When I was young we had a party line, for those who are too young to remember those it meant that you shared your line with several other families. And many times made it possible for town gossip to go around. Later we had a rotary dial phone. And usually it had a long cord so it could reach throughout the house. There were no cell phones, or hand held touchtone phones. We got up at the first sign of dawn and didn't go to bed till the sun was going down. Summers were spent helping out on the farm. During sheep sheering season us younger kids got to pack the shaved wool into long tubes that we would take up to Brigham City to the woolen mills there. Often we would get blankets for Christmas from those trips. My cousins and I would junp and jump inside those tubes we thought it was such fun little did we know we were actually working. I remember when the sheep started lambing. Dad would often be gone extra early. Sometimes he would bring some home ones that either the mother had passed while giving birth or for what ever reason didn't want her baby. Sometimes he could fool the ones that the lambs had died into taking on one of those lambs but when he had tried all of that and nothing had worked he brought them home with any sick lanbs. It was us kids job to feed them via bottles, keep their pens clean and them clean also. Dad would give any medicine if needed for the scours but they became our friends, in effect our babies. Later in the summer when it was time to bail the hay and bring it in I was called upon to drive the tractor while my brother and father loaded the wagons. I remember thinking how boring it was and as I would be riding along I would be singing songs that I could rememeber all the words too. Like the Everly Brothers.... Dream and Patsy Cline Crazy LOL I guess the point I am trying to make is from an early age I learned the value of work and believed that if people were kind and generous, that we should be also. I have had times in my life when I needed help and because of the sacrifices of others my needs were met. I took advantage of giving back by volenteering to work at the church cheese plant or help in some other way to show my gratitude. I have found myself with some mixed feelings lately and I believe I need to repent of judgeing others. It isn't how one pays kindness back and it isn't my place to say it isn't good enough. I have worked hard all my life and I guess I had formed certain ideals of how one should in a way repay charity when it is given. But, I now realize it isn't up to me. I need to be concerned with my own issues my own life not that of another. Maybe that is what it means that Charity never faileth. Because I have been given much I too must give. And I have been given much. Not just for physical needs but for spiritual also. And when you look at it we are all accountable to the Lord for his Charity. The greatest gift of all, a gift that we can never fully repay. I only hope that the lord can forgive me my weakness. I have enough of my own issues to take care of I need not worry about whether another is doing enough or the right thing. Whether it be one of my children or not. I must stand for myself at the last day. I only hope that I can take this lesson and remember it so that I never to it again. After all isn't that what repentance is all about?
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