The other day I was putting compost in the 5 holes in our front yard, where I hope to plant fruit trees this year. While I was out, I noticed that Sarah’s beehive was as busy as can be in the middle of the 60 degree day, and there was a pile of dead bees at the entrance of mine. The first thought that hit me was, “Great! Another dead beehive!” You see, I lost another one earlier last fall. As I continued to work, I was thinking about what I was going to do, and the Lord brought the words of Solomon to mind from Proverbs 27:1-2 “Boast not thyself of tomorrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth. Let another man praise thee and not thine own mouth, a stranger and not thine own lips.”

I was immediately reminded of times in the past few months when I had done both of these things; of all the plans that I had made to get VSH queens, split my hive, get tons of honey, get even more money, and even help coach one of our friends on how to start and successfully keep their beehive. It was a humbling thought that this may be directly related to all the “great plans” I had in store for myself. The Lord has some reason for allowing this to happen, and it should not surprise me that this would happen. Maybe I need more character training. Maybe He wants to build my patience. I began to see this as the perfect opportunity to look for reasons why the Lord may have allowed this to happen. Now, I am starting from scratch (along with my dad, whose bee hive also died last winter.) with those words from Solomon deeply engraved in my mind. Also, fresh on my mind is the Scripture, “The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away…” (Job 1:21b) I think that the Lord needs to bring us tests like this. If not controlled properly, we may find ourselves becoming angry about the situation. I found myself giving in to this when I first saw my dead hive. But, the Lord also wants us to think about benefits that come from a situation. Lets see; what could possibly be “good” about a dead hive? For one, it will give me a little more time until spring. Secondly, it may cause me to do some more study and research, and less planning on making money. See, the benefits are good ones. We just have to learn how to look at it that way.

I want everyone to learn from this experience – not just bee-keepers. Everyone needs to know that, at some point, there will be a consequence of “boasting of tomorrow”. Learn to give thanks to God for the things that He gives us today. Not tomorrow. When tomorrow comes, if He gives us those same things again, we can thank Him again. You see, we can never praise God too much, however, we are always in danger of praising ourselves too much. Be a learner, and praise God!

While at the Regional ATI Training Conference in Indianapolis, I met a man who has an enormous greenhouse located at the Verity Institute. One afternoon, after my father and I attended a meeting with their staff, he offered to show me his greenhouse. I readily agreed, since I enjoy gardening. To my amazement, he grows everything vertically – even the melons! He told me that they use the melons as an example for the students - that as we grow, our parents grow in the Lord, and can by His grace, continue to support and train us. The next thing that I saw was incredible. He was growing at least 90 strawberry plants in a 4′X2′ area. I found this very interesting. He had purchased some square white foam boxes with holes in the bottom, which he stacked up on an 8 foot pole. By rotating every other one 45-deg, he was able to grow 1 strawberry plant out of each corner. When you stack up 10 boxes, and plant 4 plants in each box, that is 40 in one column. I explained to him my interest in growing fruit, and he told me that he would give me a tray of runners, since he had about 900. I was amazed at this generous offer, and thanked him.

We stopped by on Saturday morning, just before leaving Indiana, and picked up the runners. After returning home, I made a thorough effort to grow these runners into 20 strong healthy plants. Unfortunately, due to scorching afternoons, and not enough nutrient, all but one died. This was very discouraging to me, especially since I had prepared the ground for all of these plants. I planted the one surviving plant, and waited.

Praise God, He was in it all along! A few weeks later I was on Craig’s list, and found a man about 1 hour away, who plants a strawberry field every year, and had 2,000 plants left over! And, he was only selling them for $0.25 a piece! I thought, “This is incredible! How can I get my hands on some of these?” It just so happened that my dad and I were taking a business trip to Richmond VA 3 weeks later, and had to pass that same exit on the way home. I asked him if this would be OK, and he agreed. I then went about making some of these boxes that I had observed at Verity Institute, and contacted the man for the dimensions and descriptions. 3 weeks later, we were on our way home from China Grove with 50 strawberry plants in the back of our car, purchased for a total of only $10. I planted them a few days later.

I thank God that He always has a plan, even if it does not look like it will happen. We now have a nice display of plants in the ground, and hopefully will be enjoying LOTS of strawberries in the coming years. (If you have any tips on insulating them over the winter, feel free to share comments!). Praise the Lord!