Weeds

When I created this blog, the named reflected my thoughts on the new phase of my life – my children had grown into adults and no longer needed to be mothered. I have tried to change my role in their lives, although I do often backslide into mothering, I’m afraid.

The infrequency of my posts reflects the newest phase of life I am in – I began working full time, outside my home a few years ago. No need to speak to that, as I am sure that is the norm for most.

Besides my insightful, thought provoking (or so I’d hoped) blog posts 🙂 , the other thing that has suffered during this transition, is the amount of time I have put into my gardening. More specifically I have let weeds infiltrate, in fact flourish, in my flower gardens.

Over the years while weeding, I have often reflected on how it parallels our spiritual health. Weeds, just like sin in our lives, grow when we overlook or underestimate them and don’t take the time to rip them out. Weeds grow right alongside and sometimes throughout the stems of the plants themselves. They are right there, mixed in with what is good and right. With sin, we need to be sensitive and aware when some behavior or attitude, creeps into our life and begins to fit right in, to flourish.

I have been watching an area in one of my gardens for a while now. Growing up and through some French Lavender is a weed. A weed with long flowing tendrils and purple flowers. It fits right in with the lavender. It’s pretty, so although I did spend time pulling SOME of it out, I was not very aggressive with removing all of it. That weed has now infiltrated itself through the entire patch of lavender. I was out there this morning, trying to eradicate it, all the while thinking, “Why didn’t I take care to remove all of this at the beginning, when I first noticed it!” It is a bigger job now, and the weather has turned much warmer. Removing it will be much more unpleasant and time consuming now, but it is my fault of course.

I hope to remember to apply this lesson to my spiritual life and be very aggressive with eradicating sin that creeps in my life, camouflaging itself and getting comfortable right alongside what is supposed to be there.

Sin, just like weeds in our gardens, has no place in our lives, let’s rip it out!