The Evil Shrub

Yesterday was gardening day around here... We've never done much gardening before, (OK, none...) but we thought we'd have a go at it! Our house has been looking quite drab lately, mostly because the "lawn" is a mixture of crabgrass, dirt, and anthills, but also because the one large bush we do have in front of the house got an unexpected haircut a couple of weeks ago, and hasn't been the same since...

A couple of weeks ago, I looked out the window to see a lawn company truck and some strange men hacking at the large bush out front with their chainsaws. Our landlord had called them in to do the job. After they left, I went outside to look, and was horrified to see a scraggly, bare, stub-like bush in its place. It looked like something that belonged outside a gloomy vampire castle in Transylvania... I could almost hear the nasty black crows flocking from miles and miles around to come and perch in it's awful branches... and I suddenly felt tempted to hang a cheerless "No Trespassing" sign from it's twisted arms. I decided against this because I thought the humor might be lost on the neighbors.

So, we decided to plant some bright flowers around it to take the "evil" edge off of it. And while I was down in the dirt, maneuvering through the weeds and roots and worms, I noticed that the bush was already growing bright green leafy patches on it's branches! It turns out that lawn company knew what it was doing, afterall. This wasn't a shrub massacre! It was what experienced gardeners call "pruning". Imagine that!! :)

Ezra was "helping" us garden by repeatedly walking back to where the hose was hanging and yelling "DA DAAAAAAA!!" while waving his arms and pointing as hard as he could at the hose for 10 minutes at a time. (Dad sometimes lets Ezra help water the lawn, and Ezra is obsessed with the garden hose now.) When he tired of this activity, he sauntered back to the dirt patch we were digging in and proceeded to COVER himself with it. He hadn't tried to put any in his mouth after 20 minutes or so, so Chris and I thought we were in the clear....
And then he ate some.
Again.
Dirt has lots of iron in it, right? Kindof like bread?
This is how I justify all the dirt Ezra has eaten in the past week.



I'm trying to really focus on Jesus this week. This week is the week to celebrate and remember what He did for me 2,000 years ago... Yesterday was Palm Sunday, when he rode into Jerusalem and all the people laid down palm branches and coats for His little donkey to walk on while they cried "Hosanna in the Highest!". Five days later, they would kill Him, and He knew they were going to, but He loved them fiercely anyways. When He died, the earth shook and the sky went black, and everyone knew that what He'd been saying was true. Three days after that, His grave was empty, and death had been conquered forever by God camouflaged as a Jewish carpenter.

And this story sounds SO CRAZY and it's still sometimes so hard to believe at face value, but all I do know is that 2,000 years later, when I pray that God would help me through the day and give me the patience and the grace I need to hang on, He does it somehow... He really does it... And suddenly this crazy story isn't quite so hard to believe.