New Therapy.

We all have that special thing we do when aggravations run deep or we need that "breather". 

Today, my new therapy came in the form of weeds. Yes, that manual labor, blood, sweat and tears kind of work that breaks your back after hours of pulling of weeds in your backyard. 

I knew I had a few minutes when Kendall was at a birthday party to spray some weed-killer and maybe get a few weeds pulled. I started out with the full goggles, mask and gloves and got a lot of the weeds killed. Then I went to our backyard. I think God had a little chore of his own for me.

The side of our backyard is only really seen by someone who may be at our kitchen sink and looking really close outside of the window. Oh yes, I am sure our neighbors see it constantly, but we all put blinders on things that look bad, right? But today, knowing I had some time to spare, took it upon myself to get the yard looking a little better before winter. 


Wow. Thicker than Amazon rainforests ... weeds abounding on the side of our yard, out of real "view" from most people. I knew what I needed to do. About an hour later, I saw a nearly 3-foot pile of weeds waiting to be taken far away from our home. 


The back-breaking work was tough. But with each weed I pulled, I began thinking about how God was using this. Soon, I was even chuckling at the absurdity of it all. Realizing that through my frustration with the endless amounts of weeds in my yard, I was also pulling the thorns from my own life. I was seeing what happens when we don't take care of our own hearts.

Not my weeds, but saw a lot of these in there.

Why is it that the easy weeds to pull are those that don't look that bad? Why is it that the hardest ones have thorns and roots that go many inches into the earth? I think we know why. It's easy to pull apart the things in our lives that we can quickly see and throw out. But we all may have things that pull at our inner core and take more than just a few hours of "cleaning" to completely purge.


I feel good that I have most of the weeds out of my yard. But what I look forward to the most, are the weeds I can pull out of my life all together. Looking at the huge pile sitting outside my kitchen window reminds me that God still is working in me. 


My heart2heart tonight is this: What do you do that shows you the things in your life that you want to work on? It takes the form of many things. But be sure to find some type of "therapy" that makes you think and makes you re-assess the things in your life that are growing and what is making your life a yard of weeds.


By the way, I'm not for hire. :) It's kind of a personal thing. 

There's a parable in Matthew that Jesus talks about weeds among the fields of wheat (Matthew 13:24). "...but while men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away. But when the stalks of wheat sprouted and produced grain then the weeds also appeared...The one who sowed the good seed is the Son of Man; and the field is the world; now the good seed, these are the sons of the kingdom; but the weeds are the sons of the evil one..." 


And then in Proverbs 24:30, "I went past the field of a sluggard, past the vineyard of someone who has no sense; thorns had come up everywhere, the ground was covered with weeds,  and the stone wall was in ruins. I applied my heart to what I observed and learned a lesson from what I saw: A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest— and poverty will come on you like a thief and scarcity like an armed man."