So after getting fed up with weeds in my lawn a couple of summers ago, I decided to invest in one of those companies that keeps your lawn fertilized and weed-treated routinely. I did the math and figured the price difference between doing it myself and paying them to do it would be money well spent.
So my little patch of green hasn’t seen a weed since 2006.
My neighbors? Not so much. The folks across from us have beautiful shrubs, flowers, and nicely fluffed pine beds…and about 4000 18-inch tall dandelion flowers. The folks to our left? Well, let’s just say you can tell where our two patches of green meet.
It’s tough to not feel a little proud.
The irony? Um, that would be the fact that Georgia has been plagued by a severe drought since last summer. While I haven’t seen any weeds pop up, I’ve barely seen the first green blade of grass in as much time.
But that has ended, perhaps. At least for now.
Hurricane/tropical storm/depression Fay has smiled on our .5 acres and dumped quite a bit of liquid gold on us the last couple of days. And now, my neatly trimmed sod is actually…dare a say it?…growing! And it’s also turning an odd color. I think they call it “green.”
I’ve waited two years for this. Too bad it’s almost SEPTEMBER and it won’t be long before my patch of green becomes my patch of blonde.
Let me warn you now that I’m the king of cheesy analogies. But it’s how God teaches me, so I make no apologies.
I’ve had a very discouraging couple of weeks. It’s hit from all sides. And one of the more discouraging things happened to day. It had nothing to do with my job, my finances, or the unity of my family. It was just ‘one of those things’ that probably wouldn’t have knocked so much of the wind out of me if I weren’t so prone to a bit of melancholy. But if today’s discouragement were a storm, it would have been one of those long, soaking rains that doesn’t stir up a lot of trouble… It’s just enough to make you want to stay in the house and hope there’s not a leak in the roof you didn’t know about. Just enough to get you a little depressed. (Maybe that’s why they call the leftovers of these storms “depressions.”)
Like our little state down here in the south, I’ve been a bit of a drought the last couple of years. Not the kind that leaves you parched…but the kind that just barely keeps the grass alive. You know…where you don’t HAVE to cut the grass every week unless you just want the exercise.
It’s been tough to follow-through consistently, but I feel like I’ve been hearing God say through all this time, “Stick with me. We’re still moving forward. The rain is coming.” I’ve complained about the heat plenty. And I’ve sure as heck let myself get dehydrated from time to time. But He’s been faithful to me. He always is. I’ve tried to keep praying without ceasing, even when I’m being smacked around. And I’ve tried to keep asking the tough questions and looking to Him for the answers. It’s been kind of like fertilizer during the drought. It’s tough to see what good it’s really done. But now that there’s been some rain the last couple of weeks, I’m thinking I may start to see a little something happen. I’m hoping to find out that the rain has made me grow and that He may be shaking things up a bit.
I don’t want to miss this lesson: To keep our Christianity alive and ready to grow at a moment’s notice, we need to keep ourselves spiritually disciplined. It is TOUGH. But the fruit it bears in season is juicy, ripe, and plentiful. God honors OUR faithfulness to HIM with HIS faithfulness to US. And His faithfulness obviously exceeds the breadth of ours exponentially.
Pray even when He doesn’t tell you He’s listening. Give even when you don’t know where it’s coming from. Encourage others even when you feel like all of your own hope is gone. Seek Truth even when you wonder if there really is any. And believe His word even when the text is blurred by your own tears.
He WILL redeem what has been broken for His sake. He always has, without fail.
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And then there’s the issue that once the grass starts growing, you’ve got to keep it cut down to size. That’s an entirely different spiritual lesson for another day. I don’t want to think about that right now. ( :
