After 15 years in the same house we moved late last summer across town to a house that provided a little more room for our family. While not the reason we purchased the house, I was drawn to the many flower beds that provided ample opportunity to create and explore. Our old yard was very sunny and I looked forward to new adventures in a part shade yard.
As I dug into the soil last fall for the first time, anticipating the release that comes from plunging your spade into the rich dark soil, my spade stopped short. I pushed harder. I heard crunching and scratching. What could be hiding under this grass? It looked to me on the surface to be green lawn, a fresh place to dig a flower bed. But I was met with so much gravel.
A long time ago, this big green lawn was a well manicured oasis for someone. Landscaped completely and beautifully with rock. And although in its day it graced a magazine, it became over grown and someone else came in and laid some sod on top of all the rocks and called it good.
Today, I was changing around a different bed. I decided to move a couple of hostas to a different location. It looked prime. There was a layer of mulch covering the soil. Again, I thrust my spade into the mulch and it went in less than a quarter of an inch. I scraped back the mulch. More rock. 4 inches of rocks. Large rock, small rock. It was all there hiding just beneath the surface.
As I scraped away the rock, trying to decide how to proceed with my flower beds, I was again reminded that God always brings the best revelations out of my time in the soil.
Just like my well manicured lawn and flower beds were hiding so many rocks, people too can look well manicured and put together on the outside but when you dig a little bit, you may find a lot of rocks.
What may have looked easy might instead hold for you long hours of digging through the hardness of life picking out all the rocks. Underneath all of those rocks there is beautiful fertile soil waiting to welcome the new life it can now receive in abundance.
Peace and love to you as you patiently dig out the rocks in your own soil.
Brie
