Doing the Right Thing

For a few minutes, a battle raged in our hearts and minds between what was right in God’s eyes and what was right in our eyes.

Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back.  Luke 6:3

The discovery…..
A few years ago, my late husband and I purchased a property as a ‘doer upper’.  It was in quite a state, to say the least, and had a large overgrown garden that hadn’t been touched for years.

We hired a lawn mower to cut the grass (which took numerous cuts over a couple of days) and much to our surprise, we discovered the outline of a garden that had once been loved before it became wild and overgrown.  Straight away, we fell in love with this neglected garden but didn’t know where to begin in restoring it.  Renovating the house was a much bigger priority at the time and money was tight!
          
The dream…..
One day, whilst taking a break from house renovating, we visited a garden centre and one of the highlights of these random visits was to enjoy a treat of tea and cake (mmm delicious!) and to get inspiration of what a nice garden could look like for us in the future when money was no object.

I found a nice table in the restaurant area to sit at whilst my late husband went to order tea and cake.  As I looked around, my eyes spotted a sign on the wall that seemed to jump out at me, ‘If you spend £100 on shrubs or plants we will design your garden free of charge’.  Suddenly, I became all excited at the prospect of having my garden designed by professionals.  My imagination went into overload as I dreamt of what my garden could become.  The only problem was that money was tight and we didn’t have £100 to spare at the time.

Scrimping and saving….
As I couldn’t get that sign out of my head (and the joy it had brought me), I decided to put some money away secretly.  Any spare housekeeping or birthday money was carefully stashed away towards my potential dream garden design.  Amazingly, by the end of 12-months I’d saved £250.00.

One Thursday evening, after we’d had dinner, I told my husband that I’d got a lovely surprise for him.  I explained about the sign I’d read in the garden centre and how I’d secretly  worked hard to save the money towards the planting to enable our garden to be designed exclusively for us, plus a bit extra on the side.  I must point out that the garden centre were not going to be responsible for doing the actual work involved, that would be up to us, but at least they’d be able to design a wonderful garden and provide information on which plants and shrubs would work best together, as at that time we didn’t have a clue about gardening.  I saw my husband’s face light up at my news and we were both very excited.

The dilemma….
However, within 20-minutes of sharing my good news with my late husband, I heard the doorbell ring and wondered who it could possibly be?  To my surprise, it was a relative, who I don’t actually get on with and who I hadn’t seen for a good while.  He was desperate and asked if we could help him out with £250 that night and that he’d repay us in the future.  There was no doubt he was in some sort of trouble as he was very anxious and agitated.  We didn’t ask what sort of trouble he was in, it would have been too humiliating for him.  Note: This person knew nothing about the money I’d saved, it was just a strange coincidence that he turned up. 

As practising Christians what were we to do?  We didn’t have time to consider our options as we were put on the spot?  It was awkward to say the least!  The Bible says, don’t turn anyone away who asks anything of you.  For a few minutes, a battle raged in our hearts and minds between what was right in God’s eyes and what was right in our eyes.  Why had this person turned up unexpectedly wanting the exact money I’d scrimped to save?  Why hadn’t he come the following week when I’d have spent the money and could have honestly said we couldn’t help?  If we gave him the money, he’d probably never pay us back, all these thoughts were going through my head vs what the Bible said we should do. 

The decision….
Although it was tough, we decided to obey the Bible and do the right thing by helping this person out in their desperation.  I had mixed emotions after he’d gone, one half of me knew I’d done the right thing, but the other half of me was gutted as my dream garden now lay in tatters or did it?

What happened next?....
After I’d got over the initial disappointment, something strange happened.  An unexplained joy filled my heart because I knew we’d done the right thing and been obedient to God’s word.

Without trying, my eyes and mind were flooded with garden ideas that I’d never thought of before.  I’m no artist, but I roughly put my ideas down on paper and designed a patio, with a garden wall and beautiful arch (nothing was to scale as that would have been too complicated).  I took my husband outside to describe the ideas that had come to me, showing him my rough sketch, and he was able to interpret it. I then got an unexpected bonus from work and we were able to buy all the materials needed at reduced costs.  Someone from another church lent us their trailer to take rubbish to the tip and fetch slabs, and we worked together to bring my ideas to life.  I then found a discount plant shop and started to buy shrubs and plants bit by bit that looked like they’d work together, and remarkably, they did.  When the garden was finished it looked absolutely amazing, and was a great selling point of the house when we eventually moved.  It also cost a lot less than we ever imagined.

Lesson learnt…
I learnt from this that God can make dreams come true if we simply obey his Word and do what is right.  I found unexpectedly, that I didn’t need someone to design my garden as I already had the creative skills within me to design something beautiful and unique.

Many years later, the person we helped did eventually pay us back, strangely at a time when we were in desperate need ourselves.

Author: Barbara Wilson 

May God bless and enrich your life



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