About three weeks ago, Kevin threw his back out. He’s done it before, but this time was a lot worse, and when it happened the lawn needed to be mowed. It’s quite a bit of grass that we mow around the house, and it was looking pretty shaggy. I can’t mow because I’m crazy allergic to grass (something that should’ve been clear to me in all my years of mowing other lawns, at other houses, with my nose running freely down my shirt), so we asked Maddie if she would do it and discovered that the mower wasn’t working.
Leaving it be until Kevin was fully healed and could address everything, the grass grew.
And grew.
And grew.
By the time he was better, it seemed such a mammoth project that he continued to find reasons not to tackle it. It wasn’t long before our tiny dog went all “children of the corn” and was reticent to set foot in it for fear of never returning. In fact, it was so bad that I wasn’t even motivated to weed the flowerbeds. It seemed that if our yard was going to look like an abandoned property, why bother with the beds?
But yesterday, apparently deciding that enough was enough, Kevin came home with the parts he needed to fix the mower and got to work. He trimmed and edged, then cranked that big riding mower to life, and with the first few rows of freshly mowed grassed, I, too, was overcome with motivation. I started attacking the flowerbeds, carefully poking around the shrubs and plants for garden enemies of the slithery, venomous type, and plucking every last weed. I deadheaded and pruned and re-spread mulch where our phantom armadillo had rooted around and made a mess. It was dreadfully hot, but we both soldiered on until, with a deep sigh of relief, we surveyed our once-again beautiful yard. Which, incidentally, seemed just as relieved, as the light was able to reach places that had been starved for it for weeks.
I was surprised by how little time it actually took. Only a few hours for such a deeply satisfying result, and all we really needed was to just start the blooming thing. And really, isn’t that always the way? We let one thing go from being a small project to a massive one, and the bigger it gets, the more it weighs on us. But if we just take that first step, we’re that much closer to feeling light and free of the burden.
Feeling heavy today, crushed under the weight of something you know you need to address but have let go on too long? Take that first step. Lay that burden down and open it up to the Light. It may take some hard work, but the satisfaction and freedom waiting for you on the other side is so worth it.
Take it from me…and my grass.
“Out of my distress I called on the Lord; the Lord answered me and set me free.” Psalm 118:5 ESV