Day 20: life giving spaces

 My front yard is out of control. Once beautiful gardens are filled to the brim with weeds. It's starting to look derelict and it's time to do something about it.  

I had promised myself that after women's retreat, I would get after the garden. Spring break is next week for the little ones and I made a deal with my teenagers that they can have less school work in exchange for a bit of spring cleaning.  They sweetened the deal.  Two projects a week until it's all done. 

I think this is a homeschool win. 

So after breakfast,  some planning and a bit of math we headed out to the front yard with a variety of garden tools and headphones for the latest audiobook to tackle the weeds. 

I worked systematically from the south end of the garden bed and worked my way north.  After I had cleared a good couple square feet,  I was contemplating what I will plant this year when I noticed a whole colony of roly poly bugs milling around. Roly polys are considered beneficial garden helpers. They are detritivores that feed on dead leaves -- although I swear they pillage my strawberries every year. 

I had taken their home. 

I watched them wondering around bewildered at the massive change in the environment and I realized:

Presentable is not the same a hospitable.

I started thinking about Airbnb or staged homes that look amazing but feel hard to live in.  Clothes and shoes that look nice but start to hurt after a few hours.  Instagram lives that highlight aesthetics over hastily captured memories that live in old photo albums.  

I return to my garden and the little homeless roly polys. I add a pile of pulled weeds to cover the bare earth. "Here's something of a home back little guys. " 

I continue on with my weeding. I start thinking of the garden to be. The new plants that will shade and house the now homeless creatures. This is just a stage.

So i think about creating space for new life and growth.  I think about pruning. I think about weeds and pests. I think how sometimes things aren't what they seem.  

And I and on sometimes life giving things aren't always beautiful or even pleasant. 

He grew up before Him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground.

He had no stately form or majesty to attract us, no beauty that we should desire Him.

He was despised and rejected by men,a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief.

Like one from whom men hide their faces, He was despised, and we esteemed Him not.

Surely He took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows; yet we considered Him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted.

Sonetimes I have to look past the fact that something isn't presentable to see that it is still life-giving. Sometimes I have to stop worrying about what people might think or how they might judge me to create space for life-giving things - even if they aren't Instagram worthy.