My hub and I are not yardwork kind of people. In fact, we despise yardwork.

A few years ago when we would look out into our backyard (more like weed jungle) all we would feel was despair. It was time consuming, hot, and exhausting work to try and remove the jungle and then keep it from returning. I understand how it feels to be overwhelmed by a task and, on top of being overwhelmed, to hate spending time doing it.

Mary and family Mary has a large backyard and when you stand on her deck and look out at it, all you see is what seems like miles of waist high weeds. Every time Mary looked at her yard, she felt despair. It was an unspoken burden in her heart. She never talked about it. Mary is a single mom with three teenagers. Ain’t nobody got time for weeds when there are bills to pay and teenagers to raise.

Mary talks a lot with God. She speaks the burdens in her life to Him and trusts He will hear her and take care of her, but she never whispered the burden of the backyard. It just seemed so unimportant in light of other things happening in the world.

But God created Mary, so each time the burden of what she saw in her backyard settled a little more deeply in her heart, God heard it, felt it, and saw it. And God answered it. He answered Mary’s question even though she never asked it. God responded to Mary’s burden through a friend who was listening to the radio and heard about an organization that helps single moms. The friend nominated Mary for assistance and that’s where Mary’s story and my story meet.

I work for WAY-FM and we were taking nominations for ministries to partner with for a special event. Every June, our stations partners with an organization and invites listeners to be Christ’s hands and feet to people in their local community. We call it Live (Service) Out and it happens in every community where a WAY-FM is found throughout the United States. Not only is WAY-FM interested in inviting their local listeners to get involved in their communities, they want their employees to be involved.

Remember what I said earlier? I despise yardwork.

I was presented with two choices.

Haul rock in the front yard or pull weeds in the backyard.

So, I pulled on some work gloves and headed to Mary’s backyard. The backyard that was an unspoken burden in her life. When I entered it I felt a little burdened myself. Wow, that is a lot of weeds! Seven of us started tackling certain priority areas and in no time at all we had cleared a large section.

All the Weeds Picked

Then the real work started. We hit patches of weeds that networked with others below the surface and weren’t so willing to be pulled loose. I waded, literally, into the waist high weeds and started pulling. I felt like we were getting nowhere even though we had already filled several bags full of weeds and there were piles waiting to go in bags. Oh, and did I mention that it was a bright, sunny day? Not a cloud in the sky. I had sweat trickling down my arms, down my back, beading on my face. I forgot to mention earlier – I also hate sweating and being too warm. Heat makes me grumpy with a capital G.

A couple of hours in and there were eleven of us pulling, bagging, and turning our slow and steady progress into an amazing finished product. We were done! It was kind of incredible, really. All these hands – some very willing, some not so willing – pulling and removing Mary’s unspoken burden by the minute until eventually, we looked around and the burden was gone. Mary was standing on her deck looking at her backyard without the despair she had felt previously. All of sudden, she could breathe again. She felt like she could manage the backyard now instead of it managing her.

God responded to Mary’s unspoken burden. He didn’t do it through supernaturally killing off all the weeds and making them disappear. He did it by employing His people to use their hands and feet. He did it through relationship. The real work of burden lifting doesn’t get done without hands and feet.

Spoken and unspoken burdens aren’t always going to require hands and feet pulling weeds or hauling rock. Maybe the hands and feet will be rubbing lotion into dry and cracked skin, cleaning a bathroom, or cooking a delicious meal for someone. That’s what is so beautiful about being the hands and feet of Christ – there are so many different ways and opportunities to be hands and feet.

[tweetthis twitter_handles=”@wayfmradio”]God often answers prayer by employing His people to use their hands and feet.[/tweetthis]

I hate yardwork. Despise it actually. But I sure am glad I showed up to Mary’s backyard and along with others became the hands and feet that removed the unspoken burden from her life. Every weed pulled and every sore muscle I now have was worth the look of relief on Mary’s countenance at the end of the day.

God did that for Mary and he will do it for us too.

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