Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
amos the churchmouse:
a view from under the pew
Editor’s note: Amos is a churchmouse, who types by hopping on a computer keyboard, but he can’t operate the capital shift, and he shuns punctuation marks – except hyphens and dashes.
freddy faces discouragement
freddy the flea has been
having some problems
lately boss
his father is an alcoholic –
a drunken flea is a pitiful
sight indeed – so his home
life hasn t been going well
and of course that s affected
freddy s job with the flea circus
his timing is off
he keeps making the
elephants sneeze and
the ringmaster says he s going
to fire freddy and toss him
back to the garbage detail
life looks so hopeless
freddy moaned i thought
being a christian meant
everything is supposed to
go well and work out great
what s happened to me
says he am i not a christian
flea anymore
sure you are says virgil the
praying mantis who hopped
along just about then
i haven t been a christian
flea very long says freddy
maybe i m not where i m
supposed to be
maybe a real christian flea
oughta be in ministry
instead of a circus menagerie
no you re where you re
supposed to be says virgil
you re just working up too
much anxiety
did you ever notice says he
with a smile – that is if a
praying mantis can smile –
that when the lord told the
discouraged fishermen in
john twenty-one to cast their
nets again that it was in the
same old place right where
they had caught nothing
no i never thought about that
says freddy not sure where
virgil was headed with this
sometimes we think that if
we can get off to some new
place when we get discouraged
then trying again would be an
easier task to do
if we could be somebody else
or go somewhere else
or do something else
it might not be so hard to have
fresh faith and courage right
i guess so says freddy
life would be much easier then
i think is that s what i need to do
no says virgil you re not
listening to me
you see it s the same old net
in the same old pond for most of us
the old temptations are
to be overcome
the old faults are
to be conquered
the old trials and discouragements
we failed at yesterday are
to be faced again today
then virgil looked little freddy
square in the eyes and says
we must win success where we
are if we win at all – and it s
the master himself who after
all these tiring disheartening
failures bids us to try again –
and he enables us by his power
to hang in there stay with it
and overcome it all
jesus really does care about
little christian fleas like thee
says he
life will once again ring
with victory
and your boat filled
with abundance
you ll see
amos