Heart renovations...

I'm hosting a dinner at our house this weekend for the team of people I went to Nicaragua with.  Wanting things to look nice for this event, today I decided to tackle the jungle of weeds that have infested our flower beds, seemingly fertilized with some kind of natural miracle grow from the winter rains.  I had misguided visions of grandeur, picturing myself getting the flowerbeds in front of the house weeded, mulched, and planted with something lovely from the garden center.  

Before I go any further, maybe I should explain that I've had romantic visions of enjoying gardening for years.  I imagine myself growing English roses laden with blooms, a French potager kitchen garden filled with herbs and salad veggies, a cutting garden of my favorite flowers and plenty of French lavender to enjoy and dry for sachets. There is, unfortunately, a vast chasm between my gardening dreams and my gardening reality.  The reality is, I want to skip to the fun, pretty part of the process.  I want to go to the garden center, bring home some lovely plants, and immediately return home to plant them in perfectly prepared soil. I want the plants to flourish and thrive without having to fuss or baby them.  I want to skip the hard preparation work,  the kind of work I faced today, and the hard work of maintenance it takes for a garden to flourish.

When we moved into our new to us house in September we realized that a lot of the bushes and shrubs were out of control, many of them way too large for where they were planted.  So, we had some of them removed.  As I was weeding the flowerbeds, I discovered that not only were there weeds as thick as ground cover, but there were deep roots left behind from the old shrubs.  After several hours and little progress, I began to wonder how much it would cost to have a professional come in and re-landscape the whole yard.  

Transition is an opportunity for self-discovery.  When we moved into our new to us home six months ago, we began renovation and updating right away.  I love the nesting part of homemaking.  Let me dig right in to the cleaning, organizing, rearranging, and decorating and I'm happy as a clam. However, living in the sawdust and mess and hard work of renovating made me crotchety.  I want a lovely home, I would just prefer to skip the hard, messy, ugly behind the scenes work it takes to get there.

In my own heart and life I'd rather not deal with the ugly, messy, hard work as well.  I'd rather avoid dealing with deep roots of bitterness and unforgiveness, I'd rather not have to diligently pull out the weeds of selfishness that seem to spring up anew every morning.  I'd rather not have to deal with inconvenient and frustrating heart renovations, especially the messy ones that I'd rather just avoid. But, as with our home and yard, there's only so much mess you can disguise by simply adding a bouquet of pretty flowers.  The hard work of pulling roots and weeds out of flowerbeds outside, of replacing flooring and and other renovations and updates inside, is necessary to the long term life and value of the home.  Likewise, being willing to cooperate with God in the hard work of heart renovation is necessary for me to experience the freedom and abundant life God desires for me to have.

One of the mistakes I make in difficult home and garden work that I'd rather not have to do, is I just want to get it over with so I forget the old "slow and steady wins the race" adage.   But, you can't rush heart renovation.  I've often found that it's a layer upon layer process.  For example, God and I work on one layer of roots of unforgiveness or bitterness and I'm doing good and experiencing new levels of freedom.  A few months or a year later, when I'm in Bible study, in prayer, or maybe in the middle of a church service, God shows me another area we need to work on.  To be honest, it's a slow and steady, never ending process.  My heart won't stop being in need of more renovation until the day I see Jesus face to face. By fighting it, trying to avoid it, resisting it, I just delay the inevitable. I have to be continually willing and yielded to what God wants and needs to do within my life and cooperate and work with Him.

I'm resigned to the fact that my flowerbeds won't be lovely before the get together at my house this weekend. Those deep roots and stubborn weeds are going to take time to dig up.  But, if I don't give up, if I persistently keep working at it, if I ask for help with things I'm unable to do on my own. it will get done.  Not giving up, persistence, and humbling myself enough to ask for help if I need it, is good advice for dealing with issues in my inner life, my heart,  as well.

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