“You yourselves know that these hands of mine have ministered to my own needs and those of my companions. In everything, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words of the Lord Jesus Himself: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.‘”1
Who knew you shouldn’t use treated landscape timber to make a raised vegetable garden? Turns out, the chemicals in the timber leach into the dirt and get absorbed into the vegetables!
I wish I had known that fact several years ago when I dug out two window wells on the south side of my home. To accommodate all the extra dirt, I made a huge raised garden using over 30 landscape timbers. It was 3 feet high, 3 feet wide, and 18 feet long – 6 cubic yards of dirt!
This spring, as I was contemplating what vegetables I would grow in the garden, Patti, who read about the landscape timber issue online, informed me about it, instantly turning my raised garden into a giant white elephant. So the last couple of days I’ve been dismantling it and trying to figure out where to put six cubic yards of contaminated dirt.
I decided to improve the drainage around our home by spreading the dirt near our foundation. This, in turn, means I have to remove landscape rock, put the dirt down, and then put the landscape rock back.
It’s backbreaking work. But I love it. Shoveling dirt and raking landscape rock is a welcome reprieve from the mental work I do most of the time. Someone once said that poets should work on their cars in their spare time and mechanics should write poetry in their spare time. I agree. Everyone needs balance in their lives.
There is something holy about hard work. It not only focuses the mind, it focuses the spirit. It’s goal-oriented. It’s productive. It’s useful. It brings a better life to the one who does it. And it brings a better life to the ones it is done for. And – especially important for Christians – it’s humbling.
Hard work is particularly holy when it’s done for those who need it the most: the widowed and single parents. This morning I visited a widow and her team; four men who have blessed her with their hard work for sixteen years. As I prayed with them and thanked God for them, I marveled at how steadfast and faithful her team had been.
Anyone who thinks the love of Christ is impractical doesn’t know the holiness of hard work.
This post first appeared in NewCommandment.org.
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