I’m guessing that if any of my neighbors had any doubts about how far my cheese has slid off my cracker, the issue is now firmly resolved. Just over a week after we had more than eight inches of rain in seven days, I was watering the lawn.

To the casual passerby, it must have seemed absurd. Barely past the mud stage and here I am, standing in what seems like a thick stand of lush, green grass, spraying on more water.

It would have taken right close attention and better than average perception to figure out that I wasn’t really watering the whole yard; I was focusing on the small patches of new grass that had just sprouted a couple of weeks before the rain. In my determined ambition to eventually have genuine sod underneath the two large Chinese elms, I had reseeded the bare splotches a few weeks ago.

The soil in that section of the yard is very sandy and only holds moisture near the surface for a very short time. Unlike the established grass which has roots already growing a few inches down into the ground, this new grass is fragile and susceptible to even a couple of days of heat. Along with temperatures in the upper eighties, we’ve had fairly noticeable breezes lately. Ergo, I’m watering the new patches.

It is good for us to remember that no matter how sound and sane other folks appear, most of us have those fragile areas in our lives. There are places others may not see that are still tender from recent wounds or scarred and sensitive from the old ones. There are parts of who we are that are not yet as strong as we would like. We cannot afford to ignore those parts nor can we force them to grow more quickly.

But if we keep watering on a regular basis, keep our roots growing deeper into the Things That Last, and keep trusting the God Who Loves Us, we’ll make it through the coming seasons of stress and testing. In the meantime, let’s be patient with ourselves and with each other. Even if cheese and cracker aren’t even on the same plate any more…

H. Arnett
6/5/2019