Greener Grass

 

My daughter is home from college this week and was expressing some of her frustrations with her housing and roommate situation.  She is particularly tired of the exceedingly small space and lack of privacy.  She mentioned that it felt unfair that this year some students were in much larger dorms than freshman usually get because of the large number of deferrals from last year.

I listened and agreed with many of her complaints.  There are certainly some aspects of it that feel unfair. 

Then I got onto the social media page for parents of freshmen.  The newest post was a parent complaining that her son is in those bigger dorms.  It turns out that due to the layout and distance from other freshmen dorms, her son was struggling to make more than a friend or two and had been sharing with her that he sure wished he was in the more traditional dorms.

I chuckled to myself and briefly read that part of the post to my daughter.

She smiled and with a sigh said, "I guess the grass always looks greener on the other side."  And then with a grin, "But I still wish I had a single."

I laughed, I get it.  But I also trust that valuable lessons can come from what appear to be less than optimal conditions.  Or even blatantly unfair ones. 

So when parts of the conditions can't change, it's time to water the grass and do some weeding.  It's time to put in the effort in accordance with guidance from the Holy Spirit. 

As Sister Joy E Jones taught, "He doesn’t expect perfection today. We keep climbing our personal Mount Sinai. As in times past, our journey does indeed take effort, hard work, and study, but our commitment to progress brings eternal rewards."

The rewards will be more than worth the effort of watering the grass.