The Grass Withered but the Flowers Didn't

            Right now our yard might look a lot like yours, if you’ve experienced the drought of 2012. Even our most diehard neighborhood yard waterers have flagged in their efforts to keep grass a vibrant green. A few recent showers offered  a modicum of hope, and a little more green has shown up to encourage the rabbit population in our backyard. By and large, the grass still looks pitiful, except where I’ve watered things I care about more. My ornamental grasses and lilac bushes have collars of green and look like they’re surrounded by lime Lifesavers.

            One irony of our grass this summer is that we decided to give ourselves a break and have a lawn service wage war on weeds, grubs, and crabgrass. All three had moved in and demanded squatter’s rights for years. Then they invited relatives to boot—or to root! I had great plans for the lawn—green, weed-free. A happy improvement over years gone by.  But then came the drought!

            It reminds me of life. We make plans. We will do this. We will do that. Things will turn out this way and that way. Then pffft! We get a life drought! Things don’t turn out how we thought they would. That’s particularly hard for me. I’m not very adventurous. Even trying a new restaurant can be a challenge for me. I don’t want to be disappointed, so I’d rather stick with the familiar than risk being disappointed. But life is full of droughts and disappointments. Man is born to trouble as surely as sparks fly upward. (Job 5:7, NIV)

 I’ve also found a surprise in my yard this summer. Every summer for years I’ve grown a couple of pots of impatiens on our front step. For the past few years they’ve done poorly, so poorly that I’ve considered changing to a different kind of plant. I’m not sure why they’ve struggled, but I suspect that they had too much water. Now impatiens are shade plants, and they do need water. They’ve had both in the past years. What I can’t quite figure out is why, in the suffocating heat of this summer, they’ve done so well.

            Isn’t that how the Christian life is? We think we should do well when we have things go our way, even when we’ve been pampered, yet we get kind of peaked and wimpy. We’re indulged. Then, when we get the blast of trials, we think we won’t make it, we think we’ll crumple in the heat.  In spite of the fire, we survive and thrive like my impatiens. 

Some years ago I told God I wanted to know him better. I meant it. He believed me, and then he turned up the heat in my life and began to teach me how to believe him. Sometime I’ll write more about that.  If you’ve had that experience, let me know. I love those stories!