New Grass Means More Chores!

Our yard and garden need more attention than our former property. More gardening chores this autumn are an antidote for frustration with today’s news!

Extra Chores Loom

Since we rent, we have been cautious about investing sweat equity and money. As a result, I have learned a few lessons in patience as I waited for the weather’s cooperation and landlord’s approval. Last week, my patience acceptance was rewarded, but my chore list got bigger! Our backyard was cleared, leveled and seeded, and an hour’s worth of outside work is now mine to do.

 Woooo-hoo! Anything to get away from the news!

Good grief! It is grim news on whichever side of the political spectrum one perches. Today seems a more dangerous and divisive time than the late nineteen-sixties and early seventies. Focusing on what I can manage is how I am coping.

I was glad back then for demands of daily living that were welcome respites from October surprises. I had no faith that God could be overruling what sure looked like our country coming apart. This October, almost five decades later, I choose to believe God who says, “I’ve got this. You tend to your job.” (2 Chronicles 20:15) So I welcome the new demands of daily living!

If that grass seed is to germinate I have work to do: moving three sprinklers and a hose about without getting doused myself; plus, making sure the black-eyed Susan’s, lavender, foxglove and daisies I planted in a side bed take root, while keeping an eye on the pots across the front of the house. Yep, this is more than I ever did in any of our gardens!

The simplest chore, watering, in an autumn’s garden reminds me today I can help things grow – and possibly contribute to a lovely spring garden. Winter can change many gardeners’ dreams.

How-some-ever, I can do today’s chores, grateful for the health, the beautiful weather, and the work others did to clear, grade and seed the eyesore our backyard was.

Let us not feel the pressures of our historical moment as a burden, but as a summons to responsibility. For in the exercise of that responsibility, we may come to feel a different weight, the “weight of glory” promised to those who are true peacemakers. (A Perspective on Peace)

My job now is to care for what I was afraid might not happen: beds to plant, and a safe yard to host the grandkids! The lesson from this year’s autumn garden: In His time, God gets things done I can’t – still He invites me to do what I can, as well as I can. (Ecclesiastes 3:11)

Extra Chores II