everyone gets an acre

Every single one of us at birth is given an emotional acre all our own. As long as you don’t hurt anyone, you really get to do with your acre as you please. You can plant fruit trees or flowers or alphabetized rows of vegetables, or nothing at all. If you want your acre to look like a giant garage sale, or an auto-wrecking yard that’s what you get to do with it. There’s a fence around your acre, though, with a gate, and if people keep coming onto your land and sliming it or trying to get you to do what they think is right, you get to ask them to leave. And they have to go, because this is your acre. — Anne Lamott Bird by Bird

All of us are given an acre when we are born. We each get to decide what to do with it. Do you keep it clean or messy? Do you build a house? Do you grow vegetables? Do you keep it wide open? What you do with it is completely up to you. Only you are responsible for your acre.

With the freedom of choosing what our acre will be like, we also have the responsibility of maintaining and taking care of it. This is not easy.

To grow things in our acre we need healthy soil + seeds + water. This reminds me of The Parable of the Sower (Matthew 13 NIV).

13 That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat by the lake. 2 Such large crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat in it, while all the people stood on the shore. 3 Then he told them many things in parables, saying: “A farmer went out to sow his seed. 4 As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. 5 Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. 6 But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. 7 Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. 8 Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. 9 Whoever has ears, let them hear.” — Matthew 13 NIV

The quality of our life is dependent on the health of our soil. The potential of a seed to bear fruit depends on where it lands. The same seed will lead to very different outcomes whether it lands on a rock or fertile soil. It is the same with all of our life events, relationships, and learning. We have to encounter them at the right time and place so they take root and grow in our acre.

What does your acre look like? What will you do with your acre?