I love gardening.
Something about working with the earth, clearing the ground for beautiful or delicious things to grow, just satisfies something deep within me.
Not only that...when I am weeding, pruning, watering, weeding, planting, and weeding some more, my mind has a chance to ponder and think. I have always known this to be one of the benefits of working outside, but today I learned yet another truth as I tilled the soil.
I have worked hard to get our yard back to where it was before I completely neglected it just before moving to Hungary. It was a mess! The front yard is blooming and growing, but, as we have other financial priorities, there are some gaps in the garden where no blooms or plants are growing. No plants other than weeds, that is. I find that the best way to fight weeds is to plant something else to use the soil.
Today I noticed some weeds growing in a spot that I have weeded several times. Resigned, I thought, "Sometimes, you just have to let a few weeds grow and concentrate on the blooms around them." I thought about my house that gets dirty in the midst of creation, in the midst of homeschooling. I thought of the bad things that grow up around me when I am focusing on big, beautiful good things.
But that led me to thinking...if I have enough blooms to fill my garden, then the weeds really won't grow.
My mind wandered back to my analogy and I think I stumbled across a very beautiful parallel: when we focus on growing beautiful things in our life--those things that are God's priority and the best and most beautiful things that we can put there--then there will not be time for those weeds of selfishness, bitterness, discontent and envy to grow. If we focus on helping the blossoms of our children grow, focusing on planting good things in their hearts and minds, there will be no room for the bad. When we fill our mind and lives with the good, the bad simply doesn't have place to grow.
Now, that doesn't mean that there won't be storms, early frosts, and adversity. However, the weeds will be less to non-existant, depending upon how much time we invest in planting.
I can weed and weed and weed the same spot again and again and the weeds will still keep coming up. However, if I plant a big beautiful plant in that same spot, my need to weed diminishes. Similarly, if I poke and prod and poke and prod my children or myself about the "weeds" without planting beautiful things to replace them, I will default to poking and prodding more to try and "keep the weeds down."
Well, time to go weed some more. I didn't read through this again, so I apologize for redundancies and incongruencies, but felt I needed to just get these thoughts down. Feel free to comment and share your thoughts and experiences on this! :)
Something about working with the earth, clearing the ground for beautiful or delicious things to grow, just satisfies something deep within me.Not only that...when I am weeding, pruning, watering, weeding, planting, and weeding some more, my mind has a chance to ponder and think. I have always known this to be one of the benefits of working outside, but today I learned yet another truth as I tilled the soil.
I have worked hard to get our yard back to where it was before I completely neglected it just before moving to Hungary. It was a mess! The front yard is blooming and growing, but, as we have other financial priorities, there are some gaps in the garden where no blooms or plants are growing. No plants other than weeds, that is. I find that the best way to fight weeds is to plant something else to use the soil.
Today I noticed some weeds growing in a spot that I have weeded several times. Resigned, I thought, "Sometimes, you just have to let a few weeds grow and concentrate on the blooms around them." I thought about my house that gets dirty in the midst of creation, in the midst of homeschooling. I thought of the bad things that grow up around me when I am focusing on big, beautiful good things.
But that led me to thinking...if I have enough blooms to fill my garden, then the weeds really won't grow.
My mind wandered back to my analogy and I think I stumbled across a very beautiful parallel: when we focus on growing beautiful things in our life--those things that are God's priority and the best and most beautiful things that we can put there--then there will not be time for those weeds of selfishness, bitterness, discontent and envy to grow. If we focus on helping the blossoms of our children grow, focusing on planting good things in their hearts and minds, there will be no room for the bad. When we fill our mind and lives with the good, the bad simply doesn't have place to grow.
Now, that doesn't mean that there won't be storms, early frosts, and adversity. However, the weeds will be less to non-existant, depending upon how much time we invest in planting.
Well, time to go weed some more. I didn't read through this again, so I apologize for redundancies and incongruencies, but felt I needed to just get these thoughts down. Feel free to comment and share your thoughts and experiences on this! :)
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