By Jody Fuller
No one ever promised us life would be easy. We all face challenges and have our shares of ups and downs. I’ve had more ups and downs than a kangaroo on a Pogo Stick all jacked up on Mountain Dew, and that’s okay. I wouldn’t be the person I am today had I not faced such adversity. We should embrace our trials and tribulations, learn from them, count our blessings, move on and grow.
Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. James 1: 2-4
If we want to learn and grow, we must handle the tasks at hand and move on; however, we need time for ourselves, too. We need that alone time to forget about life’s complexities and appreciate its simplicities.
I stay fairly busy, so I get no greater joy than sitting in my rocking chair on my front porch a couple of times throughout the day. It’s where I go when I simply need a break. It’s where I go when I want peace. It’s where I go when I want to see God’s handiwork, particularly at sunset.
I like to sit back in my chair with a keen eye out for the birds and the bees and the flowers and the trees, all just beyond my two knobby knees. There is a male blue bird that often sits atop the lone tree in my front yard, while the bees buzz around the yard sucking up nectar wherever it may be found. My view from the porch is splendid, but I’d much rather have a bird’s or bee’s eye view.
I sometimes eat on that front porch, whether it’s a bowl of cereal, a hot dog or a BLT with a Mason jar full of sweet iced tea. Ruby often joins me and lays just a few feet away. She got too close one time and the rocking chair reached over and bit her right on the tail. It’s where I go to read. I’ll cross my legs and lay that book over a knobby knee.
I look at my yard and admire the work I’ve done but also think about the work that I need to do. I can make the mockingbirds happy one day by cutting the grass but see a dandelion standing tall and proud above everything else the very next day. I can’t let it taunt me like that, so I have no choice but to get up out of that chair and pull it and any of its boastful cousins completely out of the ground. Weeds never forget their roots.
And from there, it’s back to work. I love working in the yard. There’s nothing quite like it, because it’s not really work. For me, it’s a stress-relieving, prideful hobby with instant gratification. It’s something that has to be done, but it’s something that I take pride in and something that lets me forget about everything else for a little while. It’s my time to be grateful to God for the simple things in life. Simple things like the birds, the bees, and my knobby knees.
Jody Fuller is from Opelika. He is a comic, speaker, writer and soldier with three tours of duty in Iraq. He is also a lifetime stutterer. He can be reached at jody@jodyfuller.com. For more information, please visit www.jodyfuller.com