Charity

 

Oh my students! Ms. Alley has been suffering from a fever these last few days. Spring fever! I have spent the last two days outside until dark. Monday was chilly but God had provided me with help to visit my favorite plant nursery and then gave me two days of cleaning and planting in my yard. If you know me very well, you understand what a gift of Charity from God this is to me.

To begin our adventure, my Aunt and Uncle Poe drove me to Yorkville, TN to my favorite Mom and Pop plant nursery Z’s Greenhouse. I’ve been buying the most unique and beautiful flowers there for a decade. I didn’t physically make it last year but a sweet garden fairy friend delivered and planted my Z’s treasures. Z’s ower, Debbie, started this little side business when hard times hit her home. One of my best friends mentioned would I consider buying plants from Z’s to help them out. I did and have been every year for 10 years. Debbie and Jimmy are some of the most charitable souls I know. I never left there without an extra plant or item just because they love me. Charity is so beautiful and such an important virtue. If you live in our little corner of West Tennessee, please consider visiting Z’s and buying a plant or two. She has had to scale back this season because of her health and her sweet husband is fighting cancer. Every day is a gift from God. You just can’t out give God, but it never hurts to try.

Gardening has always been a love of mine. Not being able to get down and dirty gardening has been so hard for me. My 73 year old newlywed Aunt Linda knows that. She now lives four hours away. She visits maybe once a month but knew she would not be coming back to see me for three months. She has spent enough seasons with me to know that rolling in my yard and praying on my deck amid flowers fills my soul and makes me so happy. She and her 85 year old husband decided this trip they were going to set me up with flowers to help me stay mentally healthy until she could come back in July. What charitable hearts these two love birds have. 🙂

Students have you guessed today’s virtue? Come on back row! That’s right! Charity. Christian charity is not just giving goods; it’s giving of yourself. It’s giving from your heart. It’s part of the first commandment: Love your God with all of your heart, mind, and soul. The second commandment is to love your neighbor as you love yourself. When you love others like this you are spreading God’s love. Where in your life can you show charity? It could be in small ways. Those small acts melt the hardest of hearts. It makes me laugh to remember as a child I would pick wildflowers or weeds and take them to a neighbor who was wheelchair bound. That’s right front row, irony and foreshadowing! I would walk up to her front door before I started an adventure with a hand full of weedy flowers. I would knock and she would roll to the door. She took the flowers every time with such amazement and gratitude. She would then put them in a vase, put them on top of her tv in the picture window so I could see them, and enjoy them as if I had given her a bouquet of expensive, exotic flowers. That’s charity. I had no clue God was using me but he definitely used Mrs. Opal to encourage my heart.  Students it happens that way. God uses us for the good if we let Him. Try to find some small way this Lent to serve others. Embrace the big charitable heart God gave you and use it.

Sal the Charitable Gal

Sarah Anderson Alley

Z’s Greenhouse and Nursery

TN-188, Yorkville, TN

Search Z’s Greenhouse on Facebook

Quotes of the day:

We are constituted so that simple acts of kindness, such as giving to charity or expressing gratitude, have a positive effect on our long-term moods. The key to the happy life, it seems, is the good life: a life with sustained relationships, challenging work, and connections to community.

Paul Bloom

Men lose all the material things they leave behind them in this world, but they carry with them the reward of their charity and the alms they give. For these, they will receive from the Lord the reward and recompense they deserve.

Saint Francis of Assisi

Charity is a supreme virtue, and the great channel through which the mercy of God is passed onto mankind.

Conrad Hilton

True charity is the desire to be useful to others with no thought of recompense.

Emmanuel Swedenborg

 The world calls for, and expects from us, simplicity of life, the spirit of prayer, charity towards all, especially towards the lowly and the poor, obedience and humility, detachment, and self-sacrifice. Without this mark of holiness, our word will have difficulty in touching the heart of modern man.

Pope Paul VI