It’s that time of year again. Buy at least one pumpkin, cut into the top of it, scoop out all the gunk and seeds, carve out a face, put a candle inside and set it by the front door. In some areas, carving pumpkins almost becomes an artistic event to see who can become the most creative. Some grow huge pumpkins that make it into the record books. Some folks like to roast the seeds for a homemade snack, while others will use the meat of the pumpkin to make pies or yummy pumpkin bars. When you drive through the countryside at this time of the year, you’re bound to see fields of pumpkins, untouched by human hands. There are little carts along the road where you can buy one or more of this interesting squash. You pick out your own and leave the payment in a coffee can.
Did you ever think of yourself as one of those orange orbs? I tend to think about weird things like that. Not because I have nothing else to do other than think about them, but because you can really take most any subject and turn it into a lesson. Our lives are kind of like those pumpkins. There are times when things begin to rot inside of us. We need to get the crud out. We need to empty our innards of the confusion, anxiety, stress and daily responsibilities. We can scrape away at the surface things, but only God can get in there and really clean up the gobbledy gook that stagnates and causes decay within. In this day and age, you can buy Styrofoam pumpkins already carved. They look good for a while, but eventually the elements of living, wash away the outer beauty and the grime within comes out with a vengeance.
So, what’s the lesson for today? Certainly not to think of yourself as a pumpkin, but to look not only at what you see on the outside, but how cleaning up the inside can make you even more beautiful. The truth is, if left to our own devices, there is no way we can get rid of every last bit of yuck. Only God can provide the freshness of unpolluted souls and make them spotless. Because of His great love for everyone, His grace is sufficient for all of us.
atimetoshare.me 
Leave the payment in a coffee can? Glad to hear they are still places left where we can get away with that sort of thing. Lots of yuck on the inside in most places in the country these days.
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I know it doesn’t seem possible that there is any trust anymore. It’s good to know there are still a few trusting souls out there!
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It is funny you are talking about pumpkins. I made bookmarks for all the kids in Sunday school and bringing them tomorrow. They are decorated with happy leaves and glittering pumpkins. In the center of the paper, it says God made me too!
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I love it🎃🎃🎃🎃
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I have two metal pumpkins just inside the door. I never knew what the phrase “smashing pumpkins” meant until I got to my little lovely hometown of now 27 years. They would take those carefully carved pumpkins and smash them on the street a week or two before Halloween. It destroyed something someone spent a lot of time working on and it made the street treacherous with slick spots right in the steep places on the hill. My wife gathered the wind chimes and anything nice on the porch. We never decorated outside for Christmas. If the criminal (teenagers probably) element could not learn right from wrong, we were not going to make it easy on them.
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That is one kewl pumpkin!!!
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Amen. May others come to believe that God’s grace is enough. Our works can never clean us of sin.
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Funny how we keep thinking we can do something about it, when it’s a free gift.
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