“I love it when a plan comes together.”
Colonel John “Hannibal” Smith, in The A-team.
I didn’t realize it was possible for my fingernails to hurt. Let me explain. It has taken me 11 hours over two days to pull weeds. There is an area of our yard that has gone to seed. In fact it has been this way since we purchased our house over a decade ago. This soon-to-be flower bed is the first of many landscaping projects to begin this year.
My husband and I decided that in 2013 we would seriously work on the landscaping of our back yard. Our yard has so many specific needs to be addressed that we were overwhelmed on where to begin. We hired an expert to give us direction. I must admit I was intimidated by the notion of hiring a Landscape Architect. I bet she has clients whose budgets are more than our annual income. Would she laugh at our budget or our desire to complete the task our self?
I was pleasantly surprised when Melissa, owner of Fiddlehead Landscape, arrived with 16×20 aerial photographs from both the county website and Google maps (Wow! I thought, she came prepared!) As we walked the yard, she asked about our main concerns (thankfully she never asked about a budget.) I shared with Melissa our needs and our vision for the yard. As we walked, she snap photos and drew sketches. I was mesmerized by how with just a few quick sketches of her pencil our yard was immediately being transformed.
A few weeks later, Chris and I met with Melissa to go over the plans. As she unrolled the colored sketches I couldn’t believe this was our yard. It was beautiful! Every need we had was addressed and made beautiful. I was more excited than a kid at Christmas! Several days after meeting with the Landscape Architect, Chris and I would unroll the plans just to look at them. We even carried the plans around with us to show our friends and neighbors.
We no longer feel defeated by our yard because we have a set of plans… in color… in detail. We will be completing these plans, in stages, over the next several years. We are so excited that we have plans! We don’t have to be stuck with our old yard. We now know what our yard will look like when we finish!
Recently, I unrolled the plans on the kitchen table. I reached for coffee mugs to weigh down the edges so the plans would not roll up. I laughed and said to myself “I wonder when God looks down on us with His plans for our life, does He need paper weights?” God has a vision and plan for our life. We each have specific and individual needs to be addressed. You don’t need to feel defeated or stuck in your current life. His desire is to take the challenging areas of our lives and radically transform it into something beautiful! Just as we showed off our landscaping plans to our friends, God wants to show off His love for us by showing off his plans for us. When we seek God with all our heart He will reveal His plans. Then, we get the blessing and God gets the glory!
“I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “Plans for good and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and pray to me and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” Jeremiah 29:11
~April
“May you and I be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith.” Romans 1:12
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