God Showed Me A Better Way

I’m a by-the-book, follow-the-directions, kinda girl, so I was inclined to want to do it the right way, when I set out to prepare a plot of bare ground for planting grass seed. This was the area, where the camper that Buck and I lived in for 8 months, once sat. The camper was "Home Sweet Home", while we built our new home on our little piece of rural heaven. I was blessed to have sold it this summer.

When the buyer removed the camper from my property, the ground underneath was exposed for the first time in nearly three years. There were a group of very large rocks on top of the bare soil and I made a mental note to move them as soon as possible. I made the mistake of procrastinating and created a lot of unnecessary work for myself! Because I didn’t make the rock moving chore, the priority that I should have, the weeds quickly took over; and, of course, I couldn’t mow that good sized area because of the rocks hiding in the mini-jungle! The weeds had rapidly gotten out of control and the only way to deal with them was to manually remove them, pulling them out by the roots. I’m embarrassed to admit; they were waist high by this point, well-rooted and lots of hard work to make them disappear. After many wheelbarrows of weeds were removed, I finally unearthed the large heavy rocks and wrestled them into the cart. I decided to fashion them into a fire-pit on the rear of my property.

The grass seed bag recommended tilling the soil then raking it level. I don’t have a tiller, so, I thought turning the soil over with a shovel would suffice. I got through about a quarter of the plot and realized that this was going to take way longer than anticipated! I was tired and frustrated!

I don’t remember why, but I made a trip to my garage and was startled by the loud, unexpected crash as I entered! Some might scoff, but I am convinced that it was the hand of God, or my guardian angel, at the very least, that got my attention! At the very moment when I entered the side door of the garage, the antique cultivator that Buck had purchased at an auction, fell off of it’s resting place, knocking over two rolls of tar paper as it came crashing down. This happened on the opposite side of the garage, with nothing around to have started the noisy chain reaction.

Buck's antique cultivator made my life a lot easier that day

I had completely forgotten about the wonderful garden tool! How kind of God to remind me in such a dramatic way! After all the noise, it seemed that God was whispering, " My dear daughter, you are making this a lot harder than need be. Do yourself a favor and use this tool that Buck bought to decorate his antique room". I used it to break up the ground, finishing my project a lot sooner, now that I was using a proper tool. After I raked the loosened soil to level it out, I decided that I had too much time and hard work invested in this plot for just a carpet of grass, and instead, will use it for something better when spring arrives. On Saturday, I spent the afternoon shoveling many wheelbarrows of manure and relocating the rich composted material to my new future garden site.  Tomorrow, I will spread it over the garden, providing a warm blanket and a winter’s worth of resting, enriching and my contemplation to figure out what WON’T be enticing for the herd of groundhogs that are napping in their underground network right now.


I was so thankful that God so graciously showed me a better way! It’s situations like these that make God very personal to me! Thank You, Lord, for stepping in and teaching me. Your personal touch made me feel very loved that day! I will be certain to make good use of Buck’s auction treasure in the future. Although it won't be a wall ornament, I’m sure he would approve!