ABANDON

This post was written for Five Minute Friday

Word prompt--ABANDON

Five minutes to free-write about it

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My first thought was Hebrews 13:5b--"...God has said: 'Never will I leave you, never will I forsake you."

The second thought was something I had written in my memoir about how God is the only one we can bank on; the only one whose word can be trusted one hundred percent of the time. 

I don't remember ever actually being abandoned, though in retrospect, that's what my husband did when he chose to take his life and leave me and our two young children behind. But I have been lied to and deceived many times. Once by someone I trusted who told me his word was something I could bank on. 

Lesson learned (quoted from my memoir), Man's word is subject to change. People make commitments they don't always keep. Sometimes it's because they make them impulsively, without first considering the ramifications. Other times it's because circumstances get in the way. Even the most honorable and best-intentioned folks are subject to sickness,  accidents, unavoidable delays, and death.

Circumstances have often gotten in my way, causing me to delay contacting people I care for and think about. That is something I need  to rectify. I have also abandoned projects I really wanted to complete because more pressing priorities robbed me of my time.

Today I went out on my balcony and realized I had abandoned my plants prematurely. Once the weather turned cooler and there was frost at night, I stopped tending to them. I figured the wildflowers were probably all dead by now, and the tomato plant that never bore a single tomato all summer was certainly not going to be producing any now.

Wrong! The tomato plant may not produce any tomatoes, but it is not dead. The leaves smell more tomatoey now than they ever have. And in one pot, a hardy little purple wildflower is blooming--and is surrounded by several little buds. Can you see them?

I am so grateful that God is patient and longsuffering and that He never gives up on me (or any of you) the way I had given up on these poor plants.

My five minutes is up.