Winter Is Coming

I used to visit Papaw’s and Granny’s each summer in West Virginia.  They were self-reliant people.  Papaw worked as a plumber and had a hundred-acre farm as well.  He kept chickens, a milk cow, a pig, a big garden, and an orchard in the back.  He gathered bales of hay in the summer to feed the cow in the winter.  Each fall, he slaughtered the pig and rendered meat for the next year.  Granny worked all summer putting up dozens of canning jars of fruit and vegetables in the cellar.  The cellar was dark and damp with shelves of jars standing like soldiers in rows.  Papaw and Granny Epperly worked hard in the summer preparing for the winter.  The word that comes to my mind is “diligent”.  Solomon said in Proverbs 10:4, “He becometh poor that dealeth with a slack hand: but the hand of the diligent maketh rich.”  Hey, we should be diligent in our lives, whether it’s canning and hay, or checkbooks and children.  We must deal with the details of life or clutter and delinquent bills will crop up like weeds.  Everything in life requires diligence.  Hey, are you diligent in your prayer life?  Are you attentive to your Bible reading every day?  Do you show care in attending church regularly?  Hey, be diligent ... winter is coming.