By Their Fruits
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| Abby |
Very early this morning my son came up to our bedroom while
it was still very dark. He said that he was having a dream that was bothering him. I let Will have my spot in bed thinking he could then sleep feeling comforted next to his mother. What happened next surprised me out of my sleepiness. Anne at that time, for some unknown reason got out of bed, and then
proceeded to go downstairs. I caught up
with her half way down the steps. She quickly turned noticing that I was behind her, and asked me if I had remembered to get Abby’s tooth under her pillow. I had told her that I had not. She then went down to Abby’s room while I
frantically wrote a note to Abby from the tooth fairy. I then went down stairs to her room. Upon arriving at Abby’s doorway, I noticed
that she just was starting to awaken, and looking over to the other side of the
Abby’s bed, I could barely see through the darkness to where Anne was lying. I was afraid that Abby had found her tooth
and realized that the tooth fairy did indeed not care to visit her last
night. My eyes had at that moment
adjusted to the dark and I could see a dollar bill near Abby’s head. I quickly slipped it under the pillow with a
note that I had just written. Abby then
got up and asked it I had seen the dollar that she obviously had noticed before I had arrived.
I told her, "It must be here somewhere." She frantically looked under the pillow and
found both the note and the dollar bill.
She was so excited that she wanted to read the note immediately. Anne then asked me to read it to her. I went into the bathroom and under the light
I read it out loud. Abby became very
excited at that moment. I next told her
that I heard something upstairs earlier, and Abby responded by telling me that she too had
just heard fairy wings by her ears a few minutes ago, and that it must have
been the tooth fairy that woke us both up.
I agreed, and at that moment, a hidden hand from behind Abby slowly
slipped into my mine a tooth wrapped very carefully in tissue paper. A very deep tragedy at that moment was averted!
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| Morning outside our window. |
Later when getting up, I read from the Bible in Matthew 7. It was
telling me that we would know a person by their fruits that they display. I thought to myself, “That it was true
indeed, we can know a person by their fruits!”
Another thought then occurred to me, “ How is it different from that of
judging another?” After pondering
this question for some time, I came to realize that fruit inspectors when looking
at their harvest, check very carefully for top grade fruits before sending them on
to the consumers. Bad fruit on the other
hand are left on the ground to be used as fertilizer for the growth of future good fruit.
So what is the difference between judging and being a fruit
inspector? Those that criticize and
speak badly of others are judging them.
Contrary to this, the desire to help the person who is going down the
wrong path is the person we find as a fruit inspector. He prays for those that display sinful ways,
and he also realizes his own humanity and propensity for sin. Fruit inspectors as well, seek God for help,
realizing that they themselves, and others “all” have a fallen nature and have failed in
reaching God’s expectations, and hence need the Savior’s help.
