Growing Grass the Wrong Way

My husband and I bought our home 10 years ago this November. We were 20 and 23. Uffta, way too young to take on such responsibility! Thank goodness my husband and I had the perfect mix of patience, love, and common sense to see us through!

When we bought our house it was newly built but had been left vacant for over a year. It was exciting to have a “new” house but the yard definitely needed some TLC. Grass was never planted and the lawn was literally a yard full of waist-high weeds. It was November and there was no growing season left for the year. The only option we had was to cut everything down to the ground and tackle the grass situation the following spring.

Five months later my husband decided it was time. Finally some green grass was in the works! The first step was loosening up the dirt and since we had no prior knowledge of anything of this magnitude (we had only cut the stuff before), we relied on our common sense and went to work. Brad put me on a lawn mower and told me to drive in circles while I pulled a “drag”, weighted by a concrete block, behind me. So that’s what I did – round and round. The ground was exceptionally hard but to me that only meant more trips around.

Being that this was spring, the neighbors were making their first appearances outside after their winter hibernating and we were seeing a lot of them for the first time. As I was busy attempting to bust up the dirt, a neighbor gentlemen stopped me, literally, and said, “You’re doing that completely wrong – you’re going to have to get a tiller in here and till up that ground if you ever want anything to grow.”

I was dumbfounded. I couldn’t believe that someone would actually stop to point out that they thought we were doing something “wrong”. I drove to the backyard where Brad was working and told him. He said, “Well, get back up there…now we really need this grass to grow.”

The grass did grow that year in our little plot of land. And all these years later we have one of the best looking lawns on the block! I think back to that man anytime I find myself labeling someone’s process as “wrong”. It’s easy to slip into that “controller” role but just because I would do something differently than someone else, doesn’t make their way any less right. And most of the time their way works out just fine. There’s more than one path to the same destination. It was an important life lesson…There is no sense in spreading negativity by pushing our mistaken ideals on other people.

Becky,
Sister of Soul

Soulspiration of the Week:
"When you know you're full of bull, keep your mouth shut." ~Will Rogers