Being Beautiful in Heart

Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those with skin diseases, and throw out demons. Freely you receive, freely you give. Matthew 10:8

I was looking through Facebook and found this story about bees. The insightful person who wrote it wanted to save 3 the little bees. There is a great lesson in this story and I want to share it.  Here's the sweet story.

“My dad has bees. Today I went to his house and he showed me all of the honey he had gotten from the hives. He took the lid off of a 5-gallon bucket full of honey and on top of the honey there were 3 little bees, struggling. They were covered in sticky honey and drowning. I asked him if we could help them and he said he was sure they wouldn't survive. Casualties of honey collection I suppose. 

I asked him again if we could at least get them out and kill them quickly; after all, he was the one who taught me to put a suffering animal (or bug) out of its misery. He finally conceded and scooped the bees out of the bucket. He put them in an empty Chobani yogurt container and put the plastic container outside. 

Because he had disrupted the hive with the earlier honey collection, there were bees flying all over outside. 

We put the 3 little bees in the container on a bench and left them to their fate. My dad called me out a little while later to show me what was happening. These three little bees were surrounded by all of their sisters (all of the bees are females) and they were cleaning the sticky nearly dead bees, helping them to get all of the honey off of their bodies. We came back a short time later and there was only one little bee left in the container. She was still being tended to by her sisters. 

 When it was time for me to leave, we checked one last time and all three of the bees had been cleaned off enough to fly away and the container was empty. “

 Those three little bees lived because they were surrounded by family and friends who would not give up on them, family and friends who refused to let them drown in their own stickiness and resolved to help until the last little bee could be set free. 

 We could all learn a thing or two from these bees and I know that God teaches us how to live fully, with some surprising examples. We need to keep our hearts open and share God’s love in all of our actions. Especially, when we see our own sisters and brothers needing our help. Respond lovingly like the bees did for those that were unable to help themselves. When we encounter a stranger in need, we must keep our heart open so that we are sharing God's love as He intended with the world — it's the right thing to do. 

Help and Serve the Poor and Needy

Father: Nature is all around us and we are so blessed in Your creation but few of us really see what You have inspired us to learn.  Help us to do as the little bee does, to extend our help to others when life gets a little sticky. AMEN.