Despite the high heat of the afternoon, I found myself pushing the wheeled weed-hacker, as Jake calls it, through the woods in our back yard. Behind our thick, lush green lawn, is an area of trees. We have cleared out a small section and built walkways, put in beautiful plants and flowers, a firepit, trellis, and a pond. But most of the wooded area is overgrown with brush, poison ivy and oak, and fallen limbs. Today we decided to clear out a path behind the row of flowers that border the lawn. I brought the machine over and started going for it, but then once I started, I just could not stop. Robert grabbed the other weedeater, and he and I cleared out almost the whole back woods! It is amazing to see the transformation to a place where you couldn’t even walk, to this beautiful spacious area.
It’s funny that you can have areas of your yard that you just see every day. You don’t think about them because you have gotten so used to seeing it that way. And then one day you do radical surgery. You do major clean up and suddenly, you are amazed at what you had all this time and did not even realize it. You stand there and survey that change and think, “Wow! That looks so great. I wonder why did I not do that two seasons ago!” I think the same is true of our lives. There are so many areas that need renovation. We need a deep cleaning – soap, water, scrub brushes. Or we need a brush cutter to come in and just chop out all the tangles and prickers that keep us from opening up our hearts and realizing that we have so much more to offer. There is so much beauty that is in each of us, but we have to do some cutting to see it. Part of Adam’s original charge from God was to tend and keep the garden (Gen. 2:15). That meant he had to keep it looking beautiful. And it was a joy to him!
So while I was chopping away, I was thinking about how God takes these moments of work and uses them to demonstrate a life lesson. I know that there are areas in my life that I need to keep clearing out. I need to step back and see that sometimes those areas are things I am accustomed to seeing that way or doing that way, and a fresh look is often needed to realize that change is good, and change is often necessary! If I am to be a person used by the Lord, I need to be clean and open to be used! My life should reflect His beauty. Every day … moving forward!