The Grass is Definitely Greener and Shorter Now

It was a beautiful sunny Saturday afternoon. The tall green grass in my yard had been begging for a trim for several days now. I had been ignoring its pleadings for quite some time but finally decided to heed its call and just do it. I got out the mower and it started right up, hungry for fresh cut grass. Everything was going fine and then half way through it stopped!

The gas had been completely guzzled up, its tank was bone dry. Ugh!

Oh well, I’ll take a minute and fill it back up from the container I had in the garage for situations like this. Well, so much for that. That’s empty too!

Now I’m going to have to get in the car and go fill the canister up at the nearest gas station. What a pain! But it must be done. I can’t leave the lawn looking the way it does only partly mowed. I’m sure my neighbors have been talking about how awful my lawn looks being as long as it was, already a sore site for them to see, what would they say about it now?

Wait! Speaking of neighbors. I walked next door to ask if they happened to have any extra gas I could use. What a blessing it is have such kind neighbors you can turn to in time of need!

With the tank now filled again, the mower started back up, happy and hungry for more. A few more feet mowed and then literally out of nowhere and seriously directly above my yard a big dark cloud moved in above and decided to open up and dump its wet contents below!

It was pouring rain!

Pushing a mower through extra-long grass is hard enough, pushing it through soaking wet long grass, even harder. But I was determined more than ever now to get this lawn cut. So I pushed through it.

At first I was angry and annoyed. At the stupid lawn for growing so fast. At the mower for running out of gas. At the rain. At myself for putting it off until now. But as I was being drenched in drops from the heavens and pushing through the thick wet muckiness, something inside me changed and I began to smile!

The smile quickly turned to laughter! I was now feeling grateful and full of joy for this moment. And as I kept pushing through, it seemed easier now that I wasn’t angry anymore.

The words to the song “Singing in the Rain” kept running through my mind as I kept pushing that mower across my lawn until it was all done. And when I finished the last spot and let go of the mower, it puttered to a stop, having successfully completed its job.

Then no sooner had the mower stopped, when the rain stopped too and the sun shone bright!

I laughed even harder at that moment! Seriously, rain? You couldn’t have waited ten more minutes for me to finish mowing the lawn?

But as I looked at my wet grass stained feet, and noticed the puddles of rain now drying up in the warmth of the sun, and saw the beautiful evenly mowed lawn, the rain seemed to say to me: “Are you sure you would’ve wanted me to wait? Would you have felt as you do now if I hadn’t decided to come how and when I did?”

And I smiled deeper. Grateful for the lesson learned!

“Mother Nature is always speaking. She speaks in a language understood within the peaceful mind of the sincere observer.”

——Radhanath Swami

Sometimes, life moves along smoothly, our tanks are full and things are clear and dry and easy to move through. But other times, life comes to a halt, and we just can’t move anymore.

At those times, often our back up plan may not work for us and we need to be open and vulnerable and ask for help.

And still, we may get hit with something else that tries to knock us off our path, tries to tell us: “You can’t do this”, “You’re not good enough or strong enough”, “It’s not worth it, just give up”.

But, as we open up and listen, and chose to learn from the lessons life sends us, as we turn inside and know of our worth and of our joy, as we plant our feet firmly and keep moving, keep pushing through, we will accomplish what we set out to do, and the light will come and shine brightly on our success!