Little Bits of Something

A little seed
A little soil
A little sweat
A little toil

A little waiting
A little weeding
A little compost
A little feeding

A little sunshine
A little shower
A little miracle
A little flower

It was such a lovely day yesterday – sunshine without the threat of clouds or rain so I did a little bit of gardening – it was a little bit! If one were to walk around the garden, one might not be able to spot what little bit of gardening I did do – but I did.

I think it was The Great Gardener that chivvied me outside. It had been a difficult week and I had been feeling quite low. As a Christian I felt I was making a mess of things – I hadn’t quite reached Elijah’s low point and his “it would be better if I died” speech, but things hadn’t gone well. I was paying more attention to the wrong voices than the right one.

As I dug, weeded and filled up the brown recycling bin the Great Gardener gave his assessment – not so much on my garden but the state of my inner man.

On gardening He had two things to say.

“It’s good job you are tackling this now, Mel. In a week or two, those dead grasses and dandelion leaves would put up more of a fight. The snowdrops might have worked out that it’s spring and are thriving so well…but these weeds haven’t caught on yet!”

True. I had been surprised out how easy the weeds had surrendered to the mighty garden gloved hand. I had anticipated much more sweat and a few blisters. The weeds are still in sleep mode. Now they have moved to dead mode and about-to-be-recycled mode.

“This is looking all good. I can see the rhubarb now! You need to plant something into all this weed free soil. It’s not enough to get rid of the weeds…we need to replace them with something you want to be there. Empty space doesn’t stay empty for long.”

True. I had enough history of weeding and clearing ground to know that dandelion seeds, airborne, like World War 1 parachute troops dropping on French soil, would be tugging on the ropes to land on my patch of cleared land. There was only a rhubarb plant to contend with. A few inches and they would land next door where they would be hunted down and eliminated.

On me and my current state of spirit He had a couple of things to say.

“Get out more.”

My world is slowly getting smaller. Keeping on top of housework is proving time-consuming. Actually it has been a long time since I have been on top of anything! I think I will invest in paper plates or something. Work takes a big mouthful of the day and tends to follow me home. I just need to sift the must-do from the ought-to-do and need-to do from the would-like-to-do and so on.

Having messed about in the garden for a couple of hours, I feel the benefit of being outside and doing something other than the usual.

“Sop trying so hard.”

I am sure that just as you can put too little effort into the Christian walk, I am as equally sure that you can also put too much effort into it. Maybe it’s not so much too much effort as effort into the wrong things. Maybe not even so much as the wrong things, but not the right things – the better things. There are good things and then there are better things – I might be doing the good things but I am not always doing the better things.

So, getting out more and pursuing and directing my energy towards the better things should see a turn around in my current frame of mind.