on being Ground Cover

One of the hardest questions for me to answer right now is, "So what are you doing these days?" 

I used to be able to answer that question which something cool and shocking, like, "Oh, you know, living in Africa... yeah, we have lions but I only had to worry about being eaten once when one escaped from a local, illegal zoo..."  Now that question throws me a bit and I respond, "Well, Monday is laundry day... and I vacuum on Tuesdays..." 

A friend of mine pointed out last week that I like to have things categorized and set in place. (Take one look at my linen closet and you will know that this is true.) So now that I no longer live overseas, I'm no longer a teacher and I'm not even a church janitor anymore, how do I categorize my life? What do I do now?

As I was working in my front yard one day, and wrestling over this question with God, I felt like He answered, "You're Ground Cover." 

You know, like grass. 

or hostas. 

Here's the thing... we have weeds growing in our backyard. Lots and lots of weeds. Big ones. Seriously, the spots around the house that never had a garden or bushes or flowers planted are beds of weeds... and they are at this moment attempting a hostile take over of the rest of the backyard. (I am readying my battle armor to wage an all out war early next week... lets see how they like my friends known as Vinegar and Boiling Water. They will rue the day they attempted to take over my backyard! Hahahahahahah... ahem, excuse me... sorry about that.) In my extended research (aka "I googled this a lot!") the advice that keeps popping up when you search under organic weed control is "plant more grass." Apparently, grass roots can grow to about 6 inches deep, while weed roots stay at a depth of 2-3 inches only. So with proper watering, your grass will grow and literally squeeze out the weeds. 

So I thought about this one day as I was weeding my garden, a place with no grass and lots of weeds.  

I think we all need Ground Cover in our lives... grass that grows and helps to "squeeze out the weeds." Weeds like temptation, or depression, or busyness... or even the momentary despair that comes from having something that you really like to do but never having time to do it.  So I'm Ground Cover for my husband... he gets home from work and I make dinner so he gets to spend twenty minutes playing guitar. (He always offers to help because he's awesome like that... but really, I just want to listen to the sounds of his music coming from the front of the house!) 

and over the past few weeks, I've been ground cover for a few other people... by baking cookies and holding babies and making grilled cheese sandwiches. These people usually feel bad that I "get stuck" doing these things and I want to respond, "No, this is fine, it's what I do. I'm Ground Cover." But it would take a lot of explaining and I'm afraid it would just make them feel bad... you know, me calling myself grass and all. But these people have been Ground Cover for me in the past... helped me survive scorching drought, a dandelion outbreak, grub infestation... so I can return the favor. Even if they hadn't, it's still what I'm called to right now. 

So what am I doin' these days? 

Oh, you know... I'm Ground Cover.  It's cool, and I don't have to worry about being eaten by a lion... they're carnivores after all...

ahem. sorry about that... again.