In My Pretty Garden...

I like to work outside. I especially love to work in the gardens. Flower or produce~ I don't care. Either one works for me. I much prefer yard work to house work. Anyone who visits my house can verify this information. When we bought this house 4 years ago there was red lava rock as ground cover throughout our planters. It looked pretty from the street, but that's where the beauty stops. My kids like to play outside, and the idea of running and hiding among the many bushes and trees in our planters is far too enticing. It doesn't bother me. It's their home, too. They are pretty good about avoiding my flowers, and flowers grow back. However, the red lava rock had to go! With all the running, slipping, sliding, hiding, etc., there seemed to be more rocks in my lawn than in the planters. So, I started throwing away all the rocks~ a few shovels at a time. After a couple of months the rocks were long gone. However, the disposal of said rocks added a new problem. During the disposal of the rocks many were spilled from the shovels, and landed in the lawn. This has created the job of rock digging. So, for the past 3 Summers I have spent endless hours digging endless rocks from what seems to be (only from this perspective)an endless lawn.


Our lawn is not the most beautiful in the neighborhood, however, it does look better than it did when we moved in to our home. While de-rocking my yard I found that wherever the lawn was yellow, weeds had grown, or the grass was thin there were little red lava rocks impeding the growth of my lawn! The grass tried to grow over it. The lawn did its very best to hide the rocks, but they were still there. It has taken forever to get rid of the rocks and weeds, and to get new grass to grow in the holes. There were times after I completed working for a day that I felt I had made the yard uglier than before, but I knew my yard would never have a chance until I removed every last rock. Without getting rid of the rocks the weeds would spread, and eventually take over the entire lawn. I had to make it look worse, put in more work, and in some places start completely over before it would ever get better. It's amazing to see the change in our yard as the grass has begun to fill in the holes where there used to be rocks.

There is a definite upside in this experience. I realized how these little rocks are similar to sins in my life. Due to weaknesses in my testimony little sins find their ways into my soul, burrow in, and try to take over the place. I know they're there, but I try to to ignore them. Just like my grass tried to grow over the top of the rocks, I try to grow beyond these little progress impeding sins. I try to pretend they don't exist, but then it starts to effect more than just my soul. I stop thinking about Christ~ because I'm afraid if I do think about Him I will be reminded of my hidden sins. It effects my outlook, my appearance, my personality, my relationships, and the person I am because my relationship with my Savior has dimmed. Finally, I realize the only way to really be the person I want to be is by ridding myself of the sins. And, just like my lawn, it requires a lot of time, patience, and hard work to de-sin myself. Sometimes it even feels I'm making it worse, but that's just an optical illusion. I really am getting better. In the long run, just like my yard, my soul and appearance are once again what they should be.

I'm so grateful for the knowledge that through the atonement I can earn forgiveness through the repentance process. What an amazing and beautiful gift!