Backyard Life Lessons

What I've learned from my backyard about life:

(my backyard garden)

If you store broken things there, it piles up.

If you let smelly things leave smelly things it only gets smellier if not removed.

If you till up one part and plant and care and pray...... things, good things will grow and feed you later.

If you don't maintain it, weeds will take over.

If you leave your fence low enough, you can get to know your neighbors.

If you spend time there, you may get some much needed sun!

If pests are allowed there, they will consume everything you put your hard work into growing......

You can hang your laundry there, just make sure its your clean laundry and not your dirty stuff that you're airing.

You can raise your family on fun and games there.

You can invite friends and family and neighbors into the abyss of your backyard and get to know them better.

God likes backyards.

Cultivate something there.

Like life.

To Mrs. Garden Owner

Dear Nice Lady,


Thank you so much for your recent correspondence regarding our community currently residing in your neighborhood.  We regret to inform you, however, that we have no intention of leaving this fine place you and your neighbors call home.  Oh, to frolic in your lush green lawns tormenting your canine friends and tasting the richness of your newly planted flower beds!  We had our attorney, Peter Rabbit, LLC, look over your letter and it seems its full of loopholes and you have no grounds to force us to leave.  


On a brighter note, I would like to give thanks for the amazing fence you installed around your garden.  This allows us to eat until our bellies are full and we aren't distracted by those pesky barking creatures.  It does keep them out successfully which, I'm sure, is what your goal was in installing the fence.  We also appreciate the care and thought you put into the wide variety of plants you cultivated this year.  According to my doctor I was needing more dark leafy greens in my diet to avoid any genetic heart conditions from worsening.  I do love me some spinach!  


I have a suggestion or two when you are maintaining your garden this summer.  The ants are everywhere and my wife can't stand creepy crawly things, so if you could find an organic way of eradicating them as to not poison my children in the process that would be great.  Also, if you don't mind watering a little earlier in the morning so that it is drier when the kids are feasting.  They have been returning home with muddy feet and tracking in dirt everywhere, making for an unhappy wife.  You know what they say, "unhappy wife, unhappy life."  


Thank you  for YOUR prompt attention to these matters.  We'll be in touch!  And thanks for such a warm welcome to the neighborhood, I'm sure you didn't mean to sound so negative.


By the way, the Mrs. has made a scrumptious carrot cake and would like to bring it by when it's convenient.


Sincerely,
Mr. and Mrs. Bun E. Rabbit and family

Waking Up

Through my lifetime I have dreamed many dreams of power, grandeur, success, riches, fame, etc.  I think sometimes we all believe in our adolescent days that there is this ladder we're climbing and one day we'll be at the top with all of our dreams realized.  Looking back I wonder if the adults in my life gave me that sense of goal reached success.  It kind of makes me sad and frustrated when I think about the number of dreams I've conjured up that have never been seen to fruition.  When I was 10 I knew that one day I would play Annie on Broadway. When I was 18 I knew that one day I would be running a successful bridal gown design firm with stores all over the world.  Even in my twenties and early thirties I was seeking the limelight and wanting to be a famous singer, overnight, to cash in on that wealth.  Somebody once told me that once you stop dreaming you're dead.  I don't have dreams like those anymore.  I dream of much simpler things.  Like a day alone with my hubby in a land far away, which I'm thinking now my singing career might be more attainable.  Or a day when all my bills are paid on time and nobody wants money for a debt I owe, then I will give back to all of my friends and family who deserve so much!  Or a car that's younger than my youngest child who is 10, or a hybrid.........oops, sorry went off there for a sec.  

I will keep dreaming and keep imagining my life in the future, but  now I am much more grounded on what is realistic.  I know that my God provides my every need and he gives such amazing surprise blessings when I certainly don't deserve them.  I will continue to dream of surprises and blessings but only in concept and not in detail.  God will do His will with my life and I'm along for the ride, I wouldn't mind an itinerary, but understand it's not gonna happen.

Dreaming is beautiful and invigorating.  

I will be doing that more often, but this time while I'm awake.

Dear Mr. Cottontail

Mr. Cottontail
123 My Street
My Neighborhood, USA

Dear Mr. Cottontail,

This letter is to inform you and you ginormous family of Cottontails that you are no longer welcome in our neighborhood and are therefore being evicted from said aforementioned areas.  You were once cute, last year, while hopping about and being scared of my dogs and cat.  Now, after your sneaky, sniper bunny rabbit training has given you so much confidence in yourself to snub your nose at any feline or canine in the tri-county area we must resort to this measure.  We also realize that you and Mrs. Cottontail have brought along the many hundreds of little ones that popped up this spring.  We regret to inform you that they, too, are being asked to leave.  We are asking nicely and you must consider this your first warning.  You must leave of your own recognisance or we will be forced to resort to other rather violent methods of eradicating your species.  You see, I planted my garden for my family and friends consumption and not yours.  My neighbors planted their flowers for their admiring not your diet and, might I say, expanding waistline.  It was fine when it was just you frolicking to and fro last year, but you and your bunny militia have gone too far.  I have a slingshot and am not afraid to use it!  Don't get me wrong, I love you, but I don't like your lifestyle.  May God be with you and yours, and yours, and yours, and yours, and yours, and yours, etc, etc, etc.

Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter and will we be in touch further, if necessary.

Sincerely,
Garden owner

Objects in mirror are closer than they appear!

I'm a hindsight kinda girl.  Mostly because I don't have the patience yet to determine when to sit back and let things play out.  I like to be involved in the propulsion of things.  It can be dangerous and most of the time it is extremely chaotic.  I am realizing that I need to pay attention more to the events of the moment and stop using my mirrors to look back and see how God was involved in that and FINALLY give him the glory and the credit for certain areas moving the way He saw fit and not me.  I'm seeing more and more where God's hand has lifted up, moved along, stroked through, molded and crafted things much more gracefully than I could ever do.  To watch how we are so intertwined together in this life and whether you are a believer or not, how He uses everyone to see that His plan is sovereign.  

My faith is just that, faith.  Not strong, not weak, not deeper, not better than before because I have noticed that faith is faith.  I am human and can waiver on my closeness to God and then decide to rely on faith when I have screwed it up beyond fixing by me.  

The best example of hindsight faith is watching my kids grow and looking back on how God was so present in their lives and mine through situations I thought would never subside.  My children grow closer to Him in spite of me.  I cradled them and smelled their newly washed newborn hair.  I fed them and held them up as they tried to walk.  I let them fall and watched as their legs grew stronger and stronger and they no longer fell.  

My kids are no longer behind me as I peer into that mirror of mine.  They have long since passed me up.  Now I watch as they lead the way for a whole new generation of believers.  They pick up their own cross and carry it down this road called faith.  It's my life in the mirror now.  The one where God has already placed the grace and mercy for me to deal with what might be ahead in the road.  I'm along for the ride in my faith-mobile.  It's a hybrid, by the way, and gets great gas mileage.  You should get one and test drive it a while to see where He takes you next.  It's a bumpy road, but I like four wheeling.

Happy Day - Cuz Every Day is Mom's Day

My mom is the most wonderful mother on the planet!  I know, I know, you're saying that your's is and blowing me off, but I know I'm right on this one.  She put up with a lot of @#$% from me growing up.  Again, I know your saying, "no, not you."  Yea, I was a preacher's kid and a loud mouthed, back talking, rude teenager with no respect for anyone, including myself.  And yet, she loved me through it, hopefully with a bottle of wine over scripture!  I was so horrible.  Then Jesus and I talked about it one day in my twenties and I realized he was probably right, I should change my attitude, especially towards my mother.  My mom is the most patient individual I know, except when it comes to mail on the counter or throwing things away that shouldn't be and hauling them to the garbage outside never to be seen again by man.  I love my mother.  I love her laugh.  I love the way she loves my dad.  I love the way she gets in a snit and stomps her foot on the floor.  I love the way she loves my children and about pees her pants being around them and their funniness.  I love her love for my Jesus and her Savior.  I love that she loves me.  

Here is an email that she sent me on my birthday in my email and I thought I would share:  

"Shannon,  Sending this HAPPY BIRTHDAY wish to you tonight hoping you will open your email in the morning and see it first thing and know that we are thinking of you!  41 years ago Grandma and Grandpa Dumford were spending time with us to be there when you were born...and to keep Warren and Melissa occupied while I went to the hospital.  You and Sarah had the same idea, to come when YOU wanted to and not when the doctor said you would.  The day before you were born, a Sunday, Grandma and I stayed home from church and while I waited for everyone to come home I painted my nails, sat on the back door steps in the sun, took a leisurely shower and washed my hair,  checked my bag for the hundredth time to be sure I had everything I needed to go to the hospital, and such.  When everyone came home from church we ate lunch and then went to Freedom Park to walk around the "lake" several times, feed the ducks, and get the exercise that would help convince you to arrive soon.  You got the message!  Shortly after going to bed Sunday night I was up again and on the way.  Once you decided to come, you didn't waste any time getting here and what a beautiful baby you were!  We didn't know if you'd be a girl or boy - surprise was the way it was done in those days.  How happy we were to see you!  Not long after you were born we bought a house...our first, on Kenmore Avenue in Charlotte.  We loved it there, and lived there until you were 5.  Good memories.  Hope your birthday is beautiful all day long!

 

We love you.

Mom and Dad"

And here is a just one of many stories about why I love her:

Phone rings.

me - hello?

mom and dad promptly sing me Happy Birthday in harmony!

me - thanks!

mom - well, I also have a story for you that I think you're old enough to here now.

me - (oh crap, am I adopted?  Do I have a twin?  Was a hatched?  Was a third arm removed from me right after birth?  All questions that ran through my head, but I said.....)  OK?

mom - well, when you were born and we brought you home.  Your oldest brother Warren came in to see you with his friend.  Now, Warren was approximately 4 years old so he was pretty little.  He was so excited to see you and introduce you to his little friend.  Well, after they visited with you they went outside and Warren's friend told him, "Warren, your sister is awful puny.  She's gonna die."  Warren came running in from outside crying his eyes out.  He wouldn't leave your side for the longest time, worried you were going to die.  Hahaha.  Isn't that funny?

me - Gee, thanks mom!  

I must admit the story is pretty funny and thank goodness no extra appendages had to be removed!

I love you, Mom!

I am so blessed that God put you and I together in the same body to be nurtured and loved for nine months so that you could be my mom for eternity!  God is so good, don't ya think?

Happy Mother's Day!

A little abstract poetry

Lost in a funk.

Don't know how I got here.

Can't seem to find the way out.

Need spiritual guidance.

Wanting a nap.

Grieving over changes.

Feeling a little overwhelmingly blessed.

So why am I sad?

Tears are fallin'.

Sun is shining on my house.

Laughter creeps in the windows.

Dinner will be late.

Traffic will be horrid.

Taxi mom underpaid.

Dark rooms make it hard to locate the doorknobs.

Soon fresh air will consume my lungs.

My outlook will be joyous.

Now, not so much.

Soon.