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Finding Tires and Seeing the Hand of the Lord
By Rebecca | March 20, 2008
In October 2007 General Conference President Henry B. Eyring told of a special journal he kept for his children. Each day he wrote in it how he had witnessed the hand of the Lord blessing his family. He then said:
“My point is to urge you to find ways to recognize and remember God’s kindness. It will build our testimonies. You may not keep a journal. You may not share whatever record you keep with those you love and serve. But you and they will be blessed as you remember what the Lord has done.”
Today the Lord blessed my family. I’ve been working for weeks on getting a garden started. I had no way to build a garden box in my back yard. Over the past month I have talked with a couple of people about planting a vegetable garden on their property and splitting the vegetables. Both times the other person was enthusiastic but then, somehow, it didn’t work out.
I struggled to think of a way to build a garden box, in our yard, without spending too much money. My mother had once suggested using old tires, stacking them on top of each other in a stair step, and planting vegetables inside of them. I suggested this to my husband but neither of us knew where to get old tires. Then he remembered an apartment being renovated near our home and thought maybe we could use some of the scrap lumber.
We decided to drive by the apartment and look at the junk pile. We continued down the street. On five separate curbs there were stacks of discarded tires. We called the owner of the apartments. He told us anything along the curb was trash and that we could take it. We went home and emptied our van. Then we returned and began loading tires.
We collected 16 tires off the curbs. There were so many we had to make two trips–filling the back of our van each time. As we placed the last few in our van and began to drive away, an elderly gentleman waved us down. He had been watching us collect the tires and asked if we wanted some more. He then led the way to a neighbor’s home where we loaded up three more tires.
My husband recently lost his job and we have faced various financial hardships as a result. The prophet has counseled us to have a garden for just such times. I had tried and failed, and tried and failed again to make arrangements for a garden. We thought about giving up on the plan but we decided to try just once more.
And the Lord blessed us, showed us his hand, by providing the tires we needed to build a garden box.
Topics: Blessings, General Conference, Henry B. Eyring, Inspirational |
