CTBF, Inc. & Created To Be Free Mentoring

Lynn and I always like our yard and home to look nice and inviting. Lynn does all the flowers and beautiful things and I do hardscapes and lawn. I’m also brawn for Lynn’s projects and I’m good with that. It works for us. She’s a professional. It’s what she does for a living and her part of our yard is stunningly gorgeous. She does amazing things with God’s creations.

One of the projects we’ve been working on this summer is removing railroad ties (UGLY!!), building a short stone wall and expanding the yard. That fell to me … hardscapes & yard. I do enjoy it. Yard work is stellar, and appropriate, instant gratification – spend an hour, pull a bunch of weeds and it looks great.

The wall is up, four yards of top soil was moved and spread, grass seed sown and the compost cover laid down. Water it. Keep it moist. Then comes … the big wait.

“Come on, come on! Will it come up? Will it grow? Did I mess up? It’s been a week! Shouldn’t there be something?”

I know. That’s a lot of angst for grass. HA! But there’s a high standard for our yard.

As usual, we’re up with the sun and I look out the front window, and in the chilly Oregon Coast early morning light, I see green fuzz on my new lawn. It’s everywhere. Over night. New life. I was so excited! And in that moment, I couldn’t miss the parallel with our life in Christ. The life God makes possible. I got teary-eyed. No, not over the grass itself, although that was pretty cool.

He took that flaky, wispy, dried up, seed and created a new, fresh, tender, beautiful life. The new grass in my yard has no resemblance whatsoever to the seed from which it came. It looks exactly like God created it to look. It does exactly what God created it to do.

God showed me, in that moment, when we give our hearts to Him, our lives to Him, our addictions to Him, He takes it all, our flaky, wispy, dried up lives and creates a new, fresh, tender, beautiful life. Our new life has no resemblance whatsoever to the life before. We look exactly like God created us to look. And yes, we do what God created us to do.

He took this life-long, dried up addict, sifted and sowed me in the dust of recovery, covered me with His Love, watered me, tended me and created in me a new life. So, I get tears over new grass. Yes. Yes, I do. Because the parallel is unmistakable. And I am so grateful.

Freedom is a gift from God. It is also His Promise; and He ALWAYS keeps His Promises.