On Being Refined

A year and a half ago we moved to Texas from North Carolina, leaving just 2 weeks after my husband had submitted his resume for the job that moved us here.  We left behind a couple of wonderful renters in our home that we'd spent 2 years in.  We put in the landscaping from scratch, including sod (laid when I was 4 months pregnant), trees (several were gifts to each other), shrubs, perennials (many were gifts from friends' gardens) and herbs (most of these I started from seed).  Though we struggled during most of those two years financially, I spent hours each day enjoying our gardens and finding almost dead plants for free or cheap that I nursed back to health.  Our home was by far the best landscaped in the neighborhood, brimming with color and unique plants year-round.

We'd had a hard time getting the landscaped maintained for our renters the last year and a half. The first company we ordered maintenance from simply never showed up.  We tried from Texas to find a company or individual who knew what they were doing with plants to come prune our now wild property.  Our poor renters were so faithful to water our plants and mow the yard, yet they had weeds springing up everywhere!  Finally, we got a a name through a friend for a guy who could go do the work.  He sent photos of the "before," and this weekend he faithfully went to our property and did the work we ordered.  But when we got the photos last night, we were in for a shock.

He had no idea what was weed and what was beloved plant.  He had weed-eated all the herbs and perennials down to the root and prayed them with Round-Up (which we had requested he do to the weeds in the back yard). My sage, thyme, flowering vine, and phlox were killed in the drive.  From the photos, it looks like the lilies, artemesia and black eyed susans are all dead. My gorgeous carpet of purple verbena is gone.  And all our shrubs have been hacked back to small cubes - a deed that they will never recover from.

It made me sick to see this.  Clearly, I was too attached to that yard, but I couldn't help my emotions.  Jason and I were both very upset.  But nothing can be done, it's all gone and we can't afford to replace it or be there to try and replace things.  It really sucks to be out of control of something like this, but are we ever in control in life?  There's this illusion of control, but we never really can even change a single hair on our heads, as the Bible says.  So here's another exercise in letting go and forgiving, taking thoughts captive and worshiping.  And grace.

Sigh.