Pulling the Tough Weeds

This week marks one year since I launched this blog! In beginning this new endeavor last July, I felt that I was following the leading of the Lord to share the things that He is teaching me and attempt to be a help and encouragement to those who might read it. In this first year much has happened and my posts have covered a wide variety of events and topics. I truly enjoy writing it and giving you a small glimpse into my heart and life, and I hope it has been a blessing to you in some small way.

For those who might be wondering, my patient is progressing, although it seems to be in baby steps to us - certainly much more slowly than he would like. He is now walking with a cane and continues with physical therapy sessions three times a week, twice-weekly blood draws and doctor checks, and of course the dreaded CPM machine. The machine does seem to be helping, although he has yet to put in 8 hours a day on it. Most days it is more like 3 hours, especially now that he is attempting to spend a few hours each day in his office at the church.

My caregiving responsibilities are slowly lessening, although my life is still far from my normal routine. Mostly that is because as long as my husband remains unable to drive, my days revolve around driving him to and from church, PT, and the blood draw and doctor appointments. I have found that with all that is happening lately, the Lord seems to be giving me an abundant supply of lessons to blog about. I sit down at the computer and thoughts are swirling around my brain like a snowstorm. Today I want to write about an unlikely topic: weeds.

One thing husband has always especially enjoyed is yard work and lawn care. He loves to mow, trim, fertilize, plant flowers, and just in general keep our yard and landscaping looking nice. I had to take over the lawn mowing for a few weeks prior to his surgery, and let's just say that I am not nearly as good at it as he is! Our son and now one of the young men from our church took over that responsibility, for which I am very grateful. My job is one of pulling weeds. I try to go around the flower beds and landscaping a couple times a week and just keep up with the weeds. The other night while my husband was outside walking in the driveway with his cane, we noticed that there were some HUGE weeds around our mailbox. I tried my best to pull them, but there was no way. They were a lot stronger than I was. This morning a kind man and his son from church came by to offer their assistance with our yard work, and they went to work pulling up those weeds. When they did, it was evident why I had such difficulty with them: the roots were deep and they were huge!

As I thought about those big, tough weeds and how their deep strong roots had given them such stability, I couldn't help but think about the weeds we all have in our lives.

• Weeds are usually ugly. They don't produce pretty flowers or anything of beauty.
• Weeds crowd out the good things. If you don't keep up with them on a regular basis, they will very quickly take over the flower beds.
• Weeds require work to get rid of them.
• Weeds are given stability by their roots. If you want to permanently remove the weeds, you have to remove the roots. Otherwise, they will come back. Sooner rather than later. 

The Bible doesn't have a lot to say about weeds, other than the familiar parable about the sower and the seed. One of the types of ground that is described is the thorny - full of weeds which choked out the good seed as it had been sown and was attempting to grow. If we don't keep up with pulling out the weeds of sin and influence of the world in our lives, the seed of the Word of God and the good He wants to accomplish from it will be choked out by the abundance of weeds that we haven't taken care of.

The Bible does, however, talk a lot about roots. There are both good roots (Jeremiah 17:7-8), which when rooted in Christ without the involvement of sin give us spiritual nourishment and health, and bad roots which come from sin and need to be removed. They are what will eventually produce weeds in our lives. One of those bad roots is the root of bitterness in Hebrews 12:15: "Looking diligently, lest any man fail of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled." Bitterness is a weed that begins as a root and unless it is dealt with will grow into something which not only troubles us, but will spread to others. And did you notice that the verse begins by the admonishment to be "looking diligently'? You have to be on guard for those seeds of sin and bitterness which may have already taken root in your life.

What roots and weeds do you have in your life today? Do you need to spend some time with God and do some weed-pulling? If you don't, they will eventually take over your life!

Till next time,
Kathi