Remember my weed? The huge one in front of the house that I wanted to get rid of? It is gone!
Since we live on campus, the property is not ours, so we have to get permission to do things. Well, my husband brought the groundskeeper over to our house yesterday to show him the weed and ask him if we could remove it. This morning, the weed was plucked out while we attended a volleyball game. Now that’s what I call service! He did the big job, and we now can clear out the beds and prepare them for something new!
If you look at the photo, you will notice that the front of the house is not very welcoming. In fact, several people upon hearing that we are living in this house, have looked at me with pity and said something like, “Wow, you are such a good sport.” It is not glamorous, to be sure, but let me reiterate that this house is an answer to prayer.
It is close (very close) to my husband’s office, which enables us to have just one car. It is all on one level, so I don’t have to do stairs. It has a gorgeous view from every direction. The whole thing can be cleaned top to bottom, end to end, in less than an hour. It is simple. It is manageable. It is perfect.
So, my mission is to transform that entryway into something inviting. I want the outside of the house to reflect the fact that we are happy to be here. We are happy to be in Michigan, happy to be at Concordia, happy to be on campus, happy to be in this house.
I do have a small problem. I know nothing about landscaping and nothing about what grows well in Ann Arbor. In fact, I don’t have a great track record with growing anything. So, it’s going to be an experiment. It’s going to be trial and error. It’s going to be a process. And it probably won’t ever be perfect.
It’ll be a symbol of our lives here in Ann Arbor. We will have some successes and some failures. We will learn as we go. Some days will look better than others. And, we’ll keep trying. With God’s help, something positive will happen. In spite of us, it usually does.
Hebrews 13:5
“…be content with what you have, because God has said,
‘Never will I leave you, never will I forsake you.’
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