Mary has a rather large backyard and when you stand on her deck and look out at it, all you see is what seems like miles of waist high weeds along the side and entire back of the yard. Every time Mary looked out all she felt was despair. It was an unnamed burden in her heart. She never talked about it much and so much more of life always seemed to take over as priority. Mary is a single mom with three teenagers, ain't nobody got time for weeds when there are bills to pay and teenagers to raise.
Mary talks a lot with God, she names the burdens in her life to him and trusts that he will hear her and respond in a way that assures her she and the kids are being taken care of. But she never whispered to God the burden of the backyard, it just seemed so unimportant in light of other things. But God created Mary so each time she glanced out the back and the burden of what she saw settled a little more deeply in her heart God heard it, felt it, and saw it. And God answered it. He answered Mary's question even though she never voiced it. God responded to Mary's burden through a friend who was listening to the radio and heard about an organization that helps single moms. The friend nominated Mary for assistance and that's where I enter in.
I work for the radio station that was taking nominations for the organization's help. Every June the Colorado stations partner with the organization and invite listeners to be hands and feet to single parents in their local community. We call it Live (Service) Out and it happens in every community where a WAY-FM is found throughout the United States. The service projects done throughout WAY-FM communities varies from building homes with Habitat for Humanity to landscaping/yardwork for people or ministry organizations to serving meals in a local shelter to collecting diapers for the local pregnancy center. Not only is WAY-FM interested in inviting their local listeners to get involved in their communities, they are also interested in their employees being involved. So, as we like to say, we are "voluntold"* to participate each June in our own local activities. :)
Remember what I said earlier? I despise yardwork. SIGH.
I was presented with two choices.
Haul rock in the front yard or pull weeds in the backyard.
My back made the choice for me so I pulled on some work gloves, fixed my face to poker setting, and headed to the backyard. Mary's backyard to be specific. The backyard that was an unnamed burden in her life and when I entered it I felt a little burdened myself. WOW. That is a lot of weeds, it kind of looked like a smaller sized ocean of weeds. My co-workers and I started in. We've been getting a lot of rain in our city lately, this worked to our benefit for sure. Seven of us started tackling certain priority areas and in no time at all we had cleared a large section. But then the real work started. We hit patches of weeds that networked with others below the surface and weren't so willing to be pulled loose. I waded, literally, into the waist high weeds and started pulling. Looking up and around it felt like we were getting nowhere even though we had already filled several bags and there were piles waiting to go in bags. Oh and did I mention that it was a bright, sunny day? Not a cloud in the sky. I had sweat trickling down my arms, down my back, beading on my face. If you know me you know what this means. I was in a mood. I forgot to mention earlier that I hate sweating and being hot, even overly warm, makes me grumpy with a capital G.
A couple of hours in and a few more people had joined us in the backyard. Eleven of us pulling and bagging, making that slow and steady progress that does eventually catch up all at once and boom! You're done. It was kind of incredible really, all these hands - some very willing, some not so willing - pulling and removing Mary's unnamed burden by the minute until eventually we looked around and the burden was gone. Mary was standing on her deck looking at her backyard without the despair she had felt previously. All of sudden it was like she could breathe again, she felt like she could manage the backyard now instead of it managing her.
God responded to Mary's unnamed burden. He didn't do it through supernaturally killing off all the weeds and making them disappear (thanks to the Garden scene in Genesis he won't do that). He did it by employing his people to use their hands and feet. He did it through relationship, which is often how God answers the unnamed burdens of life, Mary's and our own. And the real work of burden lifting doesn't get done without hands and feet.
Unnamed burdens that God wants to answer, along with the named ones, aren't always going to require hands and feet pulling weeds or hauling rock. Maybe the hands and feet will be rubbing lotion into dry and cracked skin or cleaning a bathroom or cooking a meal for someone. It's what is so beautiful about being the hands and feet of Christ, there are so many different ways and opportunities to be hands and feet.
I hate yardwork, despise it actually. But I am sure glad that I showed up, albeit reluctantly, to Mary's backyard and along with others became the hands and feet that removed the unnamed burden that God knew. Every weed pulled and every sore muscle I now have was worth the look of relief on Mary's countenance at the end of the day.
God did that for Mary and he will do it for us too.
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| The trailer full of bags? ALL WEEDS. There is nothing on that trailer bed but bags and bags of weeds! I told you it was a lot. And 'a lot' is a bit of an understatement really. |
*More on the "voluntold" later - now isn't the time nor place, ha!
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