I love this story that’s been circling around Facebook like a racehorse on a track for months, gathering likes, hearts, and “I care” responses by the gazillions. If you’ve seen it, it’s worth reading again. If not, you’re in for a treat.
“My dad has bees. Today I went to his house where he showed me the honey he had collected. When he took the lid off a 5-gallon bucket three little bees were struggling, 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 if we could at least get them out and kill them quickly. After all, he was the one who’d taught me to put a suffering animal (or bug) out of its misery. He agreed and scooped the bees out of the bucket, put them in an empty container, and put the container on a bench. We left them there to their fate.
Sometime later my dad called me out to show me what was happening. The three little bees were surrounded by their sisters from the hive who were busy cleaning the sticky, nearly dead bees—getting the honey off their bodies. When we came back a short while later only one little bee was left in the container, still being tended to by her sisters. After an hour had gone by when checked again, all three bees had been cleaned enough to fly away, leaving the container 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 who resolved to help until the last bee was set free.”
In the Facebook post the author wrote that the lessons from the bees were:
Bee Sisters.
Bee Peers.
Bee Teammates.
Bee kind always.
To these I’ll add that when it comes to our UWFaith sisters and all of God’s children:
Bee Loving.
Bee open-hearted.
Bee compassionate.
Bee there.
As Valentine’s Day draws near, when love is on our minds and in our hearts, don’t forget to be sister bees to everyone in need, not just on February 14th but also throughout the year.
Grace and peace.
Karen Kaigler-Walker, HTC UWFaith Spiritual Growth Coordinator
*Adapted from Kaigler-Walker, Karen. Aging in Spirit: A Woman’s Journey to God (pp. 76-77). Resource Publications, an imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers. Kindle Edition. 2023.
