Hubby and I participated in a Forestry Field Day this past Saturday. It was terrific fun!
On our way driving to the event Saturday morning, hubby asked if I thought our Forestry professor, from our Forestry class last fall, would remember us.
I didn’t think he would. After all, he has since taught two more classes: a winter online class, and a summer class. Besides, hubby and I always sat in the back row of class, we never asked any questions, and we never said anything. So there wasn’t really anything for our professor to remember us by.
Hubby, on the other hand, thought he would remember us. Because of our ravine.
At the far edge of our backyard the land falls away steeply into a very deep forested ravine. It is a near vertical drop. However, by simply standing at the top edge of the ravine and looking down you would never know.
As you can see, it looks harmless enough.
With all the foliage and ferns, it masks just how steep the drop is.
And just how far down the bottom is.
When our Forestry professor came to our property for our site visit last fall, he of course was very interested in going down to the bottom of the ravine. Prior to this, hubby and I had only ever been down there once.
Our Forestry site visit made it two times.
After surveying the forest health and ecosystem down at the bottom of the ravine, it was time to climb back out of the ravine. We had gone down by way of a somewhat gradual (yet still quite steep) descent over on the west side of the ravine.
Our Forestry professor decided to take on the challenge of climbing straight up out of the ravine.
Hubby and I, and our Forestry class assistant opted to go back up the way we had come down.
We all reached the top at about the same time … however, the straight vertical climb up out of the ravine just about did our Forestry professor in! He had not anticipated it to be such a challenge!!
He had to sit a while at the top edge to regain his breath.
And even afterwards, he was still struggling to recover as he went around using the EZ-Ject to insert herbicidal poison pellets into our holly trees.
So … back to this past Saturday. Hubby and I pulled into the gorgeous property where our Forestry Field Day event was being held. A huge white tent had been set up in a large meadow.
I was very excited about the sessions we would be attending throughout the day, and looking forward to all the interesting things we would be learning!
Hubby and I headed over to the registration table … and it “just so happened” that our Forestry professor was the one checking everyone in.
As we stepped up to the table he greeted us: “Welcome you two …” … and he proceeded to say our names!
We were both shocked that he actually remembered us! Not only that … he even remembered our names!
We laughed and told him how shocked we were that he actually remembered us!
To which he responded: “I remember your ravine!”
(haha!)
Hubby was right. Our Forestry professor had remembered us, because of the ravine!
There is a framed picture at the top of the stairs in our home with this quote which I absolutely love:
“People will forget what you said.
People will forget what you did.
But people will never forget how you made them feel.”
This is so true!
Our Forestry professor did not forget us, because of how climbing out of the ravine made him feel!
As an aside … when I went to take the photo down into the ravine just now, I had to tramp through a mess of weeds to get over the edge of the ravine. When I climbed back out, I noticed that my pant legs and socks were covered with small weed burs and clinging weed-seeds!
Don’t want to track all that in the house!
So I paused at the edge to brush off all the weed burs and clinging weed-seeds from my pant legs and socks.
As I did so, this verse popped into my mind: “Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.” – Hebrews 12:1
This blog post is about how we treat others … and what it is that they will ultimately remember. If we want to treat people right, then we better be getting rid of the “burs and clinging-sin” in our life.
What are these “burs and clinging-sins” in our life, when it comes to how we treat others?
* Disrespect towards others
* Pride
* Arrogance
* Having control issues over others
* Holding a grudge
* Anger
* Contempt
* Jealousy
* Bitterness
* Silent treatment towards others as a way to punish them
* Simmering disgust (deep down) towards others
People can totally feel these attitudes. Even if we don’t outright say anything. People can feel our attitude towards them.
“People will forget what we say.
People will forget what we do.
But people will never forget how we make them feel.”
Let us strive every day to get rid of “burs and clinging-sins” so that we can live our life in a worthy manner, one which will please Jesus Christ.
And let us strive to treat everyone with kindness, respect, and love … so that what they remember is feeling loved. The love of Jesus!
