Seedlings (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781952194269)

We all know what to do if we get stranded on an island in the middle of the ocean: put a message in a bottle and throw it out to sea. Then begin to pray. The action comes first, because we need to do all we can do before we ask for help.

Monica and I have been engaged in a service which turns this strategy on its head. In the old scenario, the one who needs help throws out the message. We, on the other hand, throw out a helpful message, hoping it might wash up on some distant shore in time to help a person who can benefit from it.

Help comes in many forms, maybe even to someone who never would have thought to seek it. It can be as simple as provoking a welcome smile. Tell me you've never needed that. Other times, it comes just as a friend's dilemma is on your mind, reinforces your idea for how to assist.

Occasionally, we receive an email from a Seedlings reader telling us how a story has arrived in a timely fashion in their life, coinciding with a larger issue they were dealing with. We humans are in a key position to be material conduits for spiritual assistance.

Coinciding? There are no coincidences. God works in mysterious ways, creates, or takes advantage of anything that might assist one of his children. Countless celestial hosts hover around us, sometimes planting seeds in our minds that will one day be fruitful in a life, sometimes harvesting that fruit to share with someone else never once even encountered by the farmer. The act is ours, the consequences God's. And small acts can have huge impacts.

To be of service. That is the engine of a spirit driven life. What Monica and I offer is just another service. If it's useful... wonderful. If it's not, nothing has been lost; and who knows what the future may hold? You're free to use it one day or not, as needed.

But we implore you to join in this service. Please broadly spread any story that touches you; there may be someone, somewhere who will find it through a friend, on a bulletin board, in a church flyer or in the local paper. It might just fill a need in someone's life. And of course, once these stories leave the garden, they are feral, owned by no one, free to be translated, transformed, restated, quoted from... use your imagination. I know we do.