Tractor Therapy

This has been a hard week. I was sick, my two younger kids were sick, my husband was away for two days to attend meetings for work, my neighbor was being a jerk (later blog!), and life was just generally very busy. As a result, I had little time to contemplate on all the goings-on in my life.

Luckily, Saturday was lawn-mowing day! This meant I got to hop on my John-Deere riding lawn mower for about two hours and ride up and down and around our two-acre property. There were no phones ringing that I "had" to answer, no delightful children yelling, "Mom" (at least that I could hear!), no other activity in which I could, or "should", be engaged - just me and my mower.

I have found mowing to be a very contemplative activity. I know the task well, and have done it so often, that I don't have to think about what I am doing. To which my husband now adds, "That's why you run over so many sprinklers with the mower!" I think he is being sarcastic, not enlightened, so I will choose to ignore him right now and continue with my contemplative musings...

This Saturday morning, with every lap of the mower, I could feel my head clearing. Stuff that had been waiting to be emotionally and spiritually unpacked was finding its way into my consciousness, and into relationship with the One who made me. Eventually, the hum of the lawn mower engine was drowned out by the deep sense of calm and peace that I found in communing with God and inviting Him in to investigate the deep spaces of my soul.

What I found was that my perspective on things changed when I had time and space to filter the week's experiences, and my reactions to them, through the grid of prayer and relationship with the Lord Jesus. I find that God is a great mirror; a gentle and loving, but also painfully accurate mirror. It is with Him that I see myself most clearly and experience myself most honestly. So, as I was sitting upon my bright green and yellow tractor, I found that my irritation with others softened; I could see my own sin in the happenings of the week more clearly (not always an easy task for me). Gratitude for the important people and things in my life came back to the center, and I repented of my impatience and self-centeredness which I displayed numerous times throughout the week, particularly with those closest to me.

So, after two hours I hopped off my tractor a somewhat different person than when I hopped on. Hopefully some of that change has stuck, and I am a little bit more like the Lord Jesus today than I was yesterday.

I guess I'll find out next Saturday...