The neighbor boy mowed my lawn last night. Well, I’ll be specific… he mowed half my lawn. Returning home, I found a section of the yard mowed (quite a bit too short, should note) and the entrance of the lawn mower on one side with an exit on the other… each a good five inches lower than the grass around it.

Initially, I began thinking that it was nice of him to mow, even though I was keeping it long to avoid the dry-out factor that just so happens to have blessed is own yard. I was a bit frustrated… that is, until I began finding pieces of my hose laying in the yard. Upon turning on my dripper line to my bird bath, I found that the dripping was replaced by a geyser in the middle of the line.

Breath, Nate, breath.

Why can’t he just mow his own lawn?!? Why did he mow half my lawn, which will take me two mowings to make it even again? Now that it’s too short, is all my grass going to die? After all this work just to keep it alive!! Now, I have to fix my two hoses that just so happened to be mowed over.

Breath, Nate, breath.

I am thinking how much of a human being situation this is. Ultimately, we want the lawn shorter. We want it to be green, full of life… successful (however we define that). We long for the right job, the right situation, a better and more full heart… an ability to love with the fullness of our being.

But people come along and help us out.. often times when we really don’t want them to. They think they are doing us a favor, but they are just getting in the way. Our lawn is shorter, but its dried out now… and they have left holes in our hoses. We go back and do the repair work. We recut… we patch the hoses, maybe buy a new one. And our lawn is shorter. We got what we wanted. But it didn’t really happen the way we wanted to. Before too long the only reminder we have left is the patches in the hoses, a bit of debris, and the memory.