Of Looking Back and Ahead And The Healing Thereof

So I've been rereading my own blog, chunks of it, anyway, and this morning I returned to our early days on this farm. Wow, those posts resounded quite loudly with "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times" stuff, didn't they?

And oh, I remembered back then how every place I looked on these four acres, inside-outside-upside down, my eyes saw things that needed to be pulled, painted, rearranged, mowed, planted, wall-papered, built, watered, vacuumed, pruned, dug up, composted, moved and --

Gee. My love-hate relationship with this place had a cause, after all. All that work crying out to me in every square foot! But more? My own remaining insecurities caused my most frequent angst. "Gotta get this place in shape!" I'd think. "Gotta keep up with the neighbors!" And although I reminded myself Rome wasn't built in one day, I still tried to build my own Rome in one year. That, and the humidity of the summers, the cold of the winters, the tiredness down to the bones when you're 50 and lazily-inclined, well, there's much one can complain about on an old farm.

Gah. I told myself (and told myself) to just enjoy the process--and often I did. (Thank-goodness.) Yet often I didn't. My wanting to get it all done became the stress that drove me, usually into a ditch which required three days from which to pull myself out.

Tsk. Tsk. I know.

Things are different now, though. Yesterday we had 47 glorious sunny degrees and I made some trips out to the compost pile and used the wheelbarrow to move a couple bins to the barn. Picked up a few pine cones, filled the birdfeeders. I swept a corner of the patio then Tom and I sat out there, eating cookies, with that 'observation deck feeling' as we looked out to our winter lake and tried to spy the many frogs and peepers singing from the cold waters gleaming in sunlight.

It was awesome. And hooray! Gone was the I-am-totally-overwhelmed feeling, for oh, the garage is built, the patio is finished, the barn is sided (most of it), the new lawns are in and the orchard trees are pruned. Inside the house the majority of rooms have been repainted, the new windows are in, the floors are refinished (downstairs, anyway), the house is insulated and well, presentable.

So I'm no longer overwhelmed. Because so much work has been completed? That's partly the reason, yes. But also there's this: Remember how we named this place Healing Acres so that city-tired folks could travel out here and rest in the silence and have their poor, weary heads and hearts healed? Well, I don't know if any city-tired folks have gained their healing on this farm, but I'm certainly gaining mine.

But slowly, oh so slowly! Yet it's happening. One finished project at a time, ok, but God is doing a deeper work in me. A work which, when completed, will enable me to be happy and contented anywhere, in any state, in any type of weather, even. It's been a huge challenge for Him, indeed! But step by ever-so-tiny-step He's growing me up and showing me the error of my ways and my thoughts and my attitude. And He's changing me, challenging me to go down deeper into Him so that I'll rise higher during the hard times. So that I'll stay balanced, contented, no matter what Life may yet throw at me.

It's one huge, ongoing project, let me tell ya. But God is ever so patient and doesn't even mind picking me up again and again as long as I'm willing to hang in there, to repent for my stubbornness, and to cooperate so I can become one with Him and steady as He is steady. And so He can lead me to the next phase, the next place ahead on this amazing journey--His way.








Psalm 143:10
Teach me to do your will, for you are my God; may your good Spirit lead me on level ground.