This may seem like a strange object to photograph.  Can you guess what it is?  It is a spring from a chair that someone has discarded (dumped at the side of the road) and deserted at the edge of the forest.  Perhaps this was just their thoughtless custom, to dump their garbage here when nobody was looking; I do not know who or how or when, all I know is this; someone has dumped loads of garbage in this forgotten and forsaken place.

I began to wonder what kind of a chair this spring once rested; was it handed down from father to daughter until finally the chair broke?  And instead of repairing the chair did they merely throw it out with the rest of their garbage?  I do not know, but here it rests rusting day after day, abandoned, unwanted and utterly useless.  As far as springs go, I guess you could call this one a failure.

Oh, the spring is still intact and unbroken and probably could have still functioned as a pretty good spring, but not now, the rust has taken its toil.  Have you ever felt like this spring?  Have you ever made a bad mistake and felt abandoned by those you use to sit comfortably with?  Have you ever fallen and suddenly you are feeling unwanted and useless; a failure with garbage all around?  There have been times in my life that I have felt this way and perhaps you have too; maybe that about sums it up for you today?

There is good news for you today!  Today you may have woken up in the garbage pile, or a jail cell, or just a prison of guilt, but you do not have to stay here another moment.  Freedom is a choice.  Many a man lives a rich full life because he knows how to turn his failures into assets.  The human soul, beaten down, overwhelmed, faced by complete failure and ruin, can still rise up against unbearable odds and triumph.  Our mistakes won’t permanently damage our lives unless we let them.  What seems to be the end may really be a new beginning.

Something to think about:

• A good man, like a bouncing ball, springs ever upward from a fall.

• Our heavenly Father is in the business of turning all our losses into gains.

• You don’t drown by falling in the water, you drown by staying there.

• Whether we stumble or whether we fall, we must only think of rising again and going on in our course.

• The past cannot be changed, but our response to it can be.

• No amount of falls will really undo us if we keep picking ourselves up each time. We shall of course be very muddy and tattered children by the time we reach home. . . . It is when we notice the dirt that the Lord is most present in us; it is the very sign of his presence.

Keep on getting up
Rickey Moore