Half-finished projects
Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash
I was thinking about Adam and Eve while I pushed my wheelbarrow full of dirt and weeds to my discard pile. What was tending the garden like for them? A majority of my gardening endeavours centre around pulling out ginormous, stubborn weeds that always mysteriously prosper where the planted seeds will not. I imagine the curse “by the sweat of your brow” would’ve been a jarring reality after the perfection of very good.
As I push the wheelbarrow past my flowerbed, I notice again the quackgrass that boldly sways in the wind taller than the struggling flowers and higher than my seven-year-old. “Ornamental grass” is how I refer to it in my generous moments.
I’m reminded of a quiet Sunday evening not long ago when I sank down into my chair and felt the force of my frustration hit. That day was a special occasion where people sentimentalize on social media about their good lives and express their admiration for each other. But all I could see was my garden seedlings sitting on my window sill.
They were partially thriving. Tall and green with their outstretched arms toward the great outdoors. “Let us out into the garden,” was their desperate, brainless plea. They were half-grown. Like my half-clean house, my half-raised children, and my half-weeded flowerbed. My half-finished laundry. Half-finished french vanilla drink.
Tears sprung to my eyes as the list of my unaccomplished chaos lengthened. Yet surprisingly I didn’t feel defeated. What kept me from despair over my glaring inadequacies of being a well-managed, organized, conquering individual? The promises of God. That one day the work he started in me will be complete (Philippians 1:6). One day soon (in the context of history) I will fade away like the grass withers, and I will be in the never-ending home of my Saviour.
The tasks today are undone. I did not love my Lord or my family with as pure of heart and motives as I wished, yet the mercies of the Lord are new every morning (Lamentations 3:22–23).
As I struggle along with my wheelbarrow, I’m struck by my act of defiance. Yes, the serpent deceived, and humans fell. The curse still weighs down the beauty of the earth, and yet my half-finished flowerbed is a declaration that “no more let sin and sorrows grow, nor thorns infest the ground” because our Redeemer has come and he is making all things new!
“I know that you have little strength, yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name,” Jesus says to the church at Philadelphia in Revelation 3:8. “I am coming soon. Hold on to what you have, so that no one will take your crown” (3:11).
Sure, it’s just a garden full of weeds, but it reveals a lesson that trains my soul to take up the full armour of God, to withstand the darts of the evil one—because even though my strength is small, his strength is made perfect. And in these little things, I’m shaped by the Master to be fit for his use.
