Grace and the messy yard

My front yard has gone wild.

The grass is overgrown and patchy and the ground is covered in places by what remains of two trees I cut down four weeks ago.

It doesn’t look like this for lack of work. On the contrary, we have invested a significant amount of time and effort in our front yard in the last month.

So why does it look like this?

Because sometimes things get messy in life. It is as simple as that.

In my case, the trees along my driveway were ruining the white cinderblock wall beside them. They needed to come down.

I decided I wanted to take them down instead of paying someone. Yes, I wanted to save the money, but I also wanted the satisfaction of taking care of it myself. So I spent most of a Saturday with brother-in-law Daniel and Jennifer The Wife and we got them down.

Another Saturday eliminated a bunch of brush, but work and church responsibilities put things on hold last week.

Add some much-needed rain to make the grass grow and you get our current situation.

Our yard will be better than it was when we finish, but right now it is a work in progress.

I think people are also works in progress. We are constantly on the way from what was to what will be.

That process often brings a mess like in my yard. We make mistakes. We screw up. We tear things down at the same time we are trying to build them up and sometimes we leave our front yard a shambles.

It happens to all of us.

Which is why I am thankful for grace. I know I have been forgiven for the mistakes I have made even though I didn’t really deserve forgiveness.

That grace is also why I believe we need to be more understanding of other people’s messes.

Ephesians 4:32 reads, “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.”

What great advice for today. Be kind, compassionate and forgiving.

And worry about cleaning up our own yard.