Wednesday, August 27, 2008

cultivating less weeds, more fruit

"Even in darkness light dawns for the upright, for the gracious and compassionate and righteous man. Good will come to him who is generous and lends freely, who conducts his affairs with justice. Surely he will never be shaken; a righteous man will be remembered forever. He will have no fear of bad news; his heart is steadfast, trusting in the LORD. His heart is secure, he will have no fear;" ~Psalm 112: 4-8

It's been a tough month. Dealing with the loss of my best friend CoCo has been rough. Even more than I had originally thought that it would be.

Throughout college, each time I would come home to visit, and when the end of the weekend was approaching I would start to pack up my bags and say my farewells. CoCo would always get special treatment. I would spend an exaggerated amount of time with her. Petting her ears, scratching her belly, and wispering in her ear to be "a good dog" (even though she was ALWAYS good) and that I loved her. Mom started preparing me way back then to say my goodbye because who knew what would happen. Four years later I was still having this ritual with her, and making each time meaningful and special. I wanted her to know that I loved her. In a sad way, I made her invicible because now I have difficulty coming to the realization that she isn't here anymore. Her presence isn't gracing my world. She is only here in spirit and in memory.

I've been learning through this time of loss. Through the struggles of balancing the finances of a house with partial income, breaking free from spiritual strongholds in my life, and handeling the new, but fun responsibilites of new homeownership while also searching for a job has been interesting. I've come to the realization that the only opinion in the entire planet that actually matters is the opinion of Christ. I've also learned that it's not so important what the actual trial is about. It's the character that you're building through the trial that actually matters.

In God's own little ways he has been encouraging me through the sounds of our new backyard, the comments of individuals passing by on their bicycles while we are working in the yard, and the comment of my 5 year old nephew Tyler about our home. These are God's way of encouraging me to press on. Press on! He'll bring beauty from the ashes.

On a different note, I thought I would show some progress of our flowerbeds since we purchased our home on May 15th. It's great to actually see progress through images for at times it seems like we are hardly making any progress at all. We have big plans but limited muscle strength. We're hoping by the end of next weekend we'll have the flower bulbs relocated, the grass seed planted and be on our way to fewer weeds!

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