Watching Grass Grow

I have baby grass. It’s tiny little green fuzz that you can only see when the light catches it just right. It’s a lawn of promise right now… but such a beautiful promise.

Every summer in our new home, the entire backyard dies. The trees, which we love so dearly, completely block out the sun and when the temperature hits over 100 degrees, the lack of sun and the heat chokes the life out of our lawn. We have come to accept that for three months out of the year we are doomed to live with dirt.

I repeatedly encourage myself with the reminder that for nine months of the year it looks like paradise, but I am always so ready for fall to arrive and the lawn to turn green again.

So, it’s finally here and the temperature has dropped enough for the little baby seeds to survive. The trees have begun there annual shedding. It’s time for baby grass, but the thing is… it is so very fragile.
– Too much rain will wash it away
– Too little water and it instantly dies
– The gopher that lives in our yard leaves trails of baby seedlings from his escapades
– Walking on it can kill it
– A heat wave now would kill it

The fact that any of it survives is a miracle.

I was watching the fan of water droplets cycle back and forth over our tiny miracles this morning while catching up with a dear friend on the phone. We were talking about my last post about hope, and I had this thought: What if I nurtured my hope the way I do my baby grass?

What if I was oh so careful not to trample it?
What if I watered it daily by spending time thinking about the nature of God and his faithfulness to me?
What if I uprooted the gophers in my life that wreak havock with my hope, instead of tolerating them…. like anxiety, fear, and vain speculation?
What if I didn’t continually trample it by revisiting my doubts over and over?

It’s just a thought I’m chewing on today and thought I’d share, but the perspective has me looking at my baby grass in a whole new light. Those tiny green seedling suddenly represent the promises of God that I’m holding onto, and the carpet of green is the hope that is springing from them.

Tomorrow, when I water my grasslings, I’m going to water my hope as well. I’m going to remember the faithfulness of God and water His promises in my life. I have a Bible full of water, and a heart full of promises, and I, for one, am looking forward to the season of green.