Cleaning up the yard

Yesterday was another beautiful fall day here in Virgina – as is today. October is known for it’s “bright blue weather”. It was good to get in the yard and clean up after summer’s ostentatious bounty. While I have been traveling the deer have had a smorgasbord in my garden – astilbe, tomatoes, sweet potato vine, hydrangea…I hope they got indigestion! I have a very effective spray that my husband orders online: Deer Off. It works well if you are home to spray it! It is all natural and based on mint so it doesn’t stink! I recommend it.

However, back to my yard… it had begun to look messy and needed some freshening up. So I pulled weeds, trimmed things back, turned the soil, threw some plants away that had passed their peak. At one point my wagon was so full and heavy it got away from me running down hill and burst through the board fence! There are many illustrations of our Christian life that we can pull (no pun intended) from the gardening analogy and I do that in our Ruth Graham & Friends “Get Growing” conferences but I don’t feel like that today. It can be overdone. I just enjoyed getting in the yard. I find it a stress-reliever.  And had I time to go by a garden center to pick up a big beautiful mum and other winter hardy plants to replace the things I had to toss. I found various sizes of pumpkins and gourds to stand guard outside my front door. So…now things are looking fallish around here. I feel satisfied.

I also had time to run by a nearby Christian radio station that was having it’s annual share-a-thon. I think Christian radio is important – especially in these times – and I think we need to support it. It is a voice that needs to continue and it can only continue if we give. We are living in an increasingly secular society we need strong voices proclaiming the Christian world view. I donated a copy of all my books, including the just released, Fear Not Tomorrow, God Is Already There, for them to offer as an incentive for listeners to give.

So from my yard and pumpkins to Christian radio…and a special birthday dinner for my husband with good conversation. A full, satisfying day. God is good!