"Gratitude is Happiness doubled by wonder.
Dandelions, Chickweed, Broadleaf dock... all weeds common to Texas. Not to mention all kinds of grass that will grow everywhere but your lawn. Today I was pulling weeds and the truth is... I had walked out the backdoor in order to get control. I needed to breathe, and just cry away from all human contact. I leaned down and as I yanked and pulled on invader grasses, I watered them with a thousand tears. My emotions finally poured out and I inhaled the calm of my garden, I knew that God absolutely sent weeds for a very good reason.
WHEN WE LOSE ONE BLESSING, ANOTHER IS OFTEN MOST UNEXPECTEDLY GIVEN IN ITS PLACE.
C.S. LEWIS
Weeds come in so many forms in our lives. What would you pull up by the roots if you were able? A really bad attitude about someone or something? Maybe a relative that makes the entire familie's life miserable? For me it's not just autism, I apparently have an entire "Honey Acre woods" of weeds that need pulling! What if like a weed you could take them by the nap of the neck and escort them into the big green plastic yard bag? Would you do it? Is the situation you're battling bad enough to seriously pull it by it's roots and smother it in a trash bag?There's always round up? Right? I mean you COULD take that hideous chemical, that poison that kills brain cells, causes cancer, and laces our water supply... and spray away the "weeds" in your life!
Would it be worth it? Sometimes it's best to just let those weeds grow with the zucchini? If you pull them out, you might just pull out the one thing that's keeping the squash vine borer moths from eating the plant from the inside out? I grow dandelions on purpose. Yep, on purpose. Cause the bees just love them, and when they'e done blooming I can seriously just push them down in the soil. Then I plant smelly marigolds to keep lots of bugs and mosquitoes away. Yep, those ugly (might as well be weeds) marigolds are well... GOLD when it comes to keeping bugs off!
"If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant."
Crohns disease is a giant stinky weed that flowers about every quarter. Taking my finally normal weight son, back down to skeleton size. That "weed" planted in his gut and then began to rear it's ugly head about ohhhhh 6 years ago? We didn't know what it was and we had a GI doctor refuse to do a lower GI on him because of his autism. Seriously? As horrific as crohns disease is, often I've wondered what's the worse "weed," the crohns disease or, the lack of understanding by main stream medicine?
"No one is as capable of gratitude as one who has emerged from the kingdom of night."
I've started a new journal, that I am calling my "Grateful for" journal. Today I wrote... I am grateful for weeds. The reason is... pulling weeds, or just the attempt to pull weeds has made me a much stronger woman. There are weeds I pull and pull, but my back into it and my entire weight. Land on my backside in the dirt, having only pulled off all it's leaves. But the weed looks at least as bad as I do. Basically it's nothing more than a stick... I tell it so. I think of that "weed" as we battle Pandas. We treat, we try new things, we beat it down only to watch it spring back to life days after it was just a stem. The hand flapping and the anxiety rise to a monstrous level and we grab the weed whacker and go to work. All kinds of drugs, in huge cocktails trying to balance that and not cause his gut to flare in rebellion! Sweaty, stinking, and exhausted we at least beat it down to an ugly stick... at least for today.
It's been a wicked summer and honestly it's technically still spring. I was thinking as the Summer Solstice is only days away... "weeds love Spring, but they dry up and shrivel a lot in the Summer heat!" I live in Houston, when it comes to Summer heat we don't play around! When I think about those awful 100+ heat indexes on the horizon... all I see is shriveled weeds. Perhaps Summer will shrivel away Pandas, at least for a season?
During that time I will sleep more. (Please Jesus!). I will recover my "weed pulling" muscles. I will be ready. Cause Fall will bring an entire new breed of weeds to contend with. I googled which weeds are most beneficial to my garden, and was surprised by the answers. Most weeds will enhance the nutrient content of your soil? They also attract beneficial insects, not the rotten kind. (Mealy bugs beware, I'm ready for you this year!). So many of them have medicinal properties.
I read that, and then I cried at how amazing God really is.
"Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this, too, was a gift."
I bowed my head and as the tears covered the paper of my "grateful for" journal, I told God that He was just showing off! Medicinal properties in all the weeds in our lives? The heartache of suffering, to grow strength of character. The pain of betrayal to create a clean heart of faithfulness. The sadness of loss that builds compassion. All these weeds, these rotten, smothering weeds I want so desperately pulled out of my life... out of my heart. Just might be the reason that some awful borer hasn't found it's way into my soul and eaten away the good stuff?
So, I am grateful for weeds. Today, I am grateful and I tremble with the truth of God's "gifts." Before I finished my "grateful for" entry for today, I stopped to pray that I never let go of God's hand to reach for the Round Up!
Matthew 13:24-43 New International Version (NIV)
The Parable of the Weeds
24 Jesus told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. 25 But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. 26 When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared.
27 “The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’
28 “‘An enemy did this,’ he replied.
“The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’
29 “‘No,’ he answered, ‘because while you are pulling the weeds, you may uproot the wheat with them. 30 Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.’”
