weeds, wounds & wonder...

The other day I decided it was time to weed the backyard. It's not a particularly hard job as the yard is smaller than a postage stamp and is mostly decorative rocks. Or at least I THOUGHT it wasn't a particularly hard job...

You'd think that with no lawn and therefore no grass in the backyard, it wouldn't be a place weeds would frequent. Well, you'd be wrong. As I got out there, got down into it and took a look around, there were weeds everywhere. I mean, everywhere. They were popping up through every little nook and cranny. I started pulling and before I knew it, a quick "pull some weeds here and there while I talk on the phone" job turned into "spend the entire afternoon pulling weeds and get the last of it done before the sun goes down" job. It wasn't exactly how I'd planned to spend my day, but some really cool things took place during my unplanned day.

My kids realized what I was doing and all three of them came running out of the house and started asking "Mommy, can I help? Can I help?' Of course I was thrilled to have any help whatsoever, so I explained that we were pulling out anything that was green and that we had to be sure to get the roots. You can imagine that with an 8 year old, 5 year old and 3 year old pulling weeds, "thorough" was not a very prominent concept. They did their best, but no matter what part of the yard I put them in and asked them to take care of, they'd eventually gravitate to where I was. They wanted to pull weeds right beside me and didn't want to handle things on their own. Though it wasn't as productive as I would've liked, or as time-efficient, I eventually realized that God had put these little weed-pullers right beside me to teach me some things.

The first thing that He reminded me was that I ought to be quite grateful for three kids who even wanted to spend time right beside their mommy. There might come a day when these moments wouldn't be so prominent. I very quickly told my frustration and my desire to be efficient, quick and task-oriented to shut up and take a hike. As the kids pulled weeds around me, Jack became very confused as to the reason that we were pulling up the flowers. "Mommy, this is not a weed, right, because it's so pretty!" "No, Jack, that IS a weed and we have to pull it. It disguises itself as a pretty flower so we'll think it's pretty, but all the while it is choking out the good flowers around it!" Jack pulled the "pretty flower" out of the ground and said "huh...well, it might be pretty on top, but the roots are just as ugly as ever!" It doesn't take a genius to know what God was teaching me there...

If I look at my life from the level of my back porch, I might tend to think I'm doing okay. I mean, I love God, I love my family, I don't break the law, I'm a nice person, I do christian things and people probably generally think well of me. If I actually come off the back porch and get down into my life though, I realize that there are weeds everywhere. There are the obvious ones that I know shouldn't be there: gossip, critical spirit, ungratefulness, pride and the like. But then, there are the ones that disguise themselves as pretty, or funny, or harmless. They're the ones that if I don't police and stay on top of, they'll choke out the holiness process. It's the tv shows I get addicted to that not only have nothing God-glorifying in them, they are replete with the things grieve the Spirit of God. It's the music that my flesh LOVES, but that, if I'm honest, is not glorifying to Christ and contradicts the things that I would say are precious to me, like purity. It's the movies that, as a follower of Christ, I really have no business going to because I can tell even from the previews that I'll have to lay my standards down along with the money I'm called to steward in order to see the thing.

Sometimes the hardest part of this whole "life-weeding" process is that what God's calling me to weed out of my life, may not be what He's calling other believers to weed out of theirs. It's easy to judge my holiness by that of other believers and say "well, I mean, EVERYONE watches that show and loves it!" or "come on...everybody thinks that's funny...it doesn't mean we'd actually DO it..." but God doesn't ask me to judge what He's calling me to by the standards of believers around me. He asks me to judge my holiness by HIS holiness and by what His Spirit convicts me of. He asks me to obey, not to bargain with Him. He says that I will be blessed if I obey, not if I give a very well-crafted reason why, in this relevant culture, things are just different...

The other thing He reminded me of is that I'm not allowed to judge other believers by MY standards as much as I'm not allowed to judge myself by THEIR standards. My responsibility is to take care of the weeds in my life as God reveals them to me. My standard is the conviction of the Spirit and the words of scripture. My responsibility is to my Lord. Back to the yard...

At some point during the weeding process, I brushed against poison oak. I had no clue that it had happened, but you can believe that I knew it a few days later! In retrospect, I can see that I did not take the proper precautions before the weeding process to ensure that I wasn't exposed, but sometimes we have to learn lessons like this the hard way. The worst part of the poison oak? It morphed into a severe staph infection. Yep. If it can happen, it will probably happen to me. Here's a pic...

Not long after that pic was taken, the whole arm began to swell. You couldn't even recognize the bones in my elbow or wrist, or what the arm even used to look like! I ended up with an emergency doctor visit, shot and more potent prescription medications than I've been on in quite a while. I'd like to tell you that I wasn't able to make a huge spiritual application from this experience, but you know better, don't you?

Unfortunately, there have been times in my life when I did not take the precautions necessary to avoid exposure and I paid for it dearly. Only in the last few months do I feel like I'm on the other side of quite a long and arduous journey as a result of not weeding like I should and not avoiding some plants altogether! God, in His mercy, used the poison oak and resulting staph infection to tenderly remind me that there are some things that you can't just pull out by the roots and throw away. Sometimes, it gets all over you anyway. In severe cases, no amount of medication or cream makes it feel better. It requires professional assistance to eradicate it. I don't like how I feel when I'm struggling and I especially don't like that I don't recognize myself anymore. In my life, even though I know all of these things, sometimes I still think I can be around the things that have bested me in the past. I don't know if it's a desire to prove I'm okay, or what, but I'm realizing that keeping any shred of the things that have infected me in the past, (be it unhealthy relationships, poor attitudes, bad habits or toxic environments) is about as ridiculous as keeping a poison oak plant in a vase on the kitchen table, but resolving not to touch it. The only way for me to keep from being infected is to avoid it all together.

Unfortunately, the poison oak episode has left me with my first substantial scar. I've never really had any scars up to this point. The pain is gone, the medication regimen is over and the shot did it's job. But, I'm left with a reminder of my little dance with the forbidden plant. Though it's ugly and won't be the most attractive accessory to my sleeveless summer wardrobe, it's also a stark reminder of God's grace to me. I look at it and realize all that He's rescued me from and I'm reminded of the value of weeding regulary and avoiding some things altogether.

But that's not all He taught me that day. As I was down in the weeds pulling and sweating and feeling like it would never be done, my kids suddenly yelled, "MOMMY!!!!!!!!!! Look what we found!!!" I went over and noticed that they'd found the most intricately designed amazing little snail. They were enraptured. They practically had their noses to the ground marveling at the little creature. I admit it...I was amazed too. As he inched along and pulled into his shell and back out again, I explained that he had a little slime all over his body that helped him get around and get into and out of his shell. Sure enough, while we watched, little white foam came out when he pulled into the shell. Really quietly, Jack said "God's so cool." He was right. God is SO cool. Sometimes I get so wrapped up in the junk that's in my life and needs to be weeded that I feel like it will never be done and I completely fail to see all the wonder of God around me.

It's true that on this side of eternity it will never all be done. It's also true that every single time I obey Him, I progress further along in the process He's taking me through to conform me to the image of His Son. I can't get so bogged down in the weeding that I miss the wonder of Him though. He's in every morning that I wake up, He's in every smile of my children. He's in every single little detail of my day, down to the white foam on the smallest snail. As the children and I looked around, we suddenly realized that there were about 30 more snails all over the ground, on the posts of our deck and all underneath. They were everywhere! We'd just been so busy weeding that we'd missed it.

As we finished up for the day, I realized that I'm a lot like my kids. I want to stick close to my Father while He points out what needs to be weeded. I also realized that I'm not the only one pulling stuff out. He's right there with me. Lastly, I realized that He wants me to be just as amazed at His handiwork as they are, and that if I look with eyes to see, He'll show me that His wonder is all around me.

peace.