[pinit]
There’s a 16 x 20 foot patch of dirt in my backyard that will never win any awards for beauty. It’s ordinary. Rather ugly even. Yet, every year from this plain, ordinary, brown patch of dirt– beauty grows. Not just beauty in the form of plants and blooms – but food that sustains us. Squash, peppers, tomatoes. From a patch of ordinary brown grows yellow and green and red fruits of life. Sweet strawberries and spicy horseradish.
Beauty grows from Ordinary.
I grumble to my husband that my life feels to mundane and routine. So ordinary. I get frustrated by days filled with dishes and laundry and driving. Only to do it all again the next day. I grumble that I’m so much smarter than what my tasks imply. He wisely warns me that I need to be careful not to become bitter, that I have a choice to make.
A choice to allow beauty to grow from ordinary.
And it’s not just dishes and laundry and vacuuming. It’s the beauty of caring for my family. It’s the beauty of loving them and being there for them. Of helping with homework to grow strong and wise children. It’s the beauty of offering grace in the middle of their messes.
While it all looks so plain and brown, we’re planting seeds and growing a rainbow of fruit.
Love. Joy. Peace. Patience. Kindness. Gentleness. Self-Control.
From the ordinary can grow the fruits of the Spirit.
But I have a choice. Do I poison the soil of my soul with frustration and resentment and bitterness?
Or do I fertilize my soul with faith that I’m doing what God has called me to do in this season of life, and that beauty will grow from ordinary?
Linking up today with Lisa Jo and Five Minute Friday
Photo by kedron rhodes. Text overlay by Amelia.
What a wonderful way to put beauty! Yes there is beauty in the ordinary. Beauty in many ordinary things!
It can be hard to remember at times, Sarah! I love the reminders that God gives us, often through others!
Such simple truth, and oh if we would really have the courage to embrace it every day, that beauty grows from ordinary, and we choose.
Oh yes, the courage to embrace it. So much harder than it sounds! Thanks for stopping by!
Amelia, this spoke to me where I’m at currently. Thank you for being real and for sharing the wise things your husband told you.
Thank you for stopping by! I’m glad this short little message encouraged you!
Oh, I am so fighting the good fight against bitterness and resentment today. There is so much good to come from seeing beauty from the things we do and things that happen to us. (And I have pumpkins growing in my brown patches, too!)
Yay for bright colored pumpkins in the brown dirt! I know you’ve had a doozy of a week, Jen! Fight the good fight and ward off the bitterness and resentment. Let God grow something beautiful, as I know He is!! <3 to you!
This was gave me pause: “I grumble that I’m so much smarter than what my tasks imply.” I have this tendency as well…to believe that there is something about me that makes dishes and laundry and wiping noses ..not beneath me, exactly. But something. Good words on the power of decision in our ordinary lives…thanks for this!
I hear you Sarah Beth! I don’t know what it is in me – probably a bit of pride – but I think it’s more along the lines of frustration and feeling like what I do doesn’t matter. But that’s a lie! Thanks for stopping by!