By Request

God Still Gives Second Chances

     From our kitchen window we can see Emory's favorite apple tree--a young red delicious. It generally puts on enough fruit for him to have eatin' apples for a good while. But not this year. The late freeze we had the first of April attacked with a vengeance, wiping out all the new leaves and blooms. So there will be no fruit this year. All that's left is a brown death with a few gasping leaves on several of the top limbs. More leaves will come later, but that's all we can expect. Our one consolation is that our red delicious apple tree will have another chance next year.        
     Dear Soul, Has the devastating freeze of wrong choices destroyed your fruit bearing potential? Perhaps you are a single mom who made the choice to have sex before the "I Do", so now you have a child to care for. Or are you living with the agony of aborting your baby? Perhaps you are one of those who decided to quit school, or made poor grades, so was unable to graduate.  So now you stay on the list of the unemployed because you can't find a decent job. Are you suffering because you believed the lies of the crowd and the media that drugs and alcohol were cool, so now you are controlled by an addiction from which you can't escape? Are you among the mass of souls who feel they are worthless, and are suffering because of self-destructive behaviors such as cutting, bulimia, or being involved in cults or gangs? Because of their own frozen lives, did your parents leave God and the Bible out of the picture, so did not know how to teach you the difference between right and wrong?
     If you are one of these, there is hope for you!!!!! Just like that apple tree you can have a second chance if you will plug into Jesus Christ, and the Bible. 2 Corinthians 5:17: Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come. (NIV)
      God gives second chances!! He also gives third and fourth. So if you've tried once and failed, try again. If you feel like you are gasping for your last breath, don't die in your misery. Call someone who is already plugged into the Lord. They will help you. Then come next year you just might bear enough eatin' apples for quite a while. Matthew 11:28&29:  Come to Me(Jesus), all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. (NKJV) --Rebecca Somoskey