Pulling Weeds #ItTakesTimeToBloom #GriefConfessions
Last weekend we redid the landscaping in front of the house. It was overrun with weeds and I even had a big poison ivy plant growing. Mom taught me that if you don’t get the root of the weed out it will keep coming back. I’d pulled those weeds numerous times and sprayed them but those pesky things are persistent. They kept coming back! Sometimes it takes a lot of digging and pulling to get to the root of the weed.
We spent an entire day digging out the old mulch, weeds, and poison (thanks to my amazing family for all of their hard work.) Once we got all the old junk out we had to go through the process of laying down new plastic-paper stuff (to keep the weeds from growing) and then we started dumping the bags of rock where the mulch used to be. After four trips to Home Depot, a lot of sweat, weird sunburn marks, and cleaning out a truck bed of white rocks, we finished the job at 10:30pm. Talk about a long day but it was a successful one!
That’s exactly how my yesterday went except all the work being done was on the inside. If you read yesterday’s post, you all ready know it was a tough day for me, but there’s nothing more frustrating than not being able to find the root of my tears. I have to find the root, dig it out, before I can move onward. If I can teach you any tool about how to release yourself from pain, that’s it! You have to find the source, feel every emotion it’s giving off, and lay it to rest. Yesterday mine contained a lot of anger. :/
After I wrote my post I thought maybe I’d cleansed myself from grief and I would start feeling better. But it turns out there was more root to dig out. I’d only managed to pull the top off the weed. So it sat there firmly planted messing up my pretty landscaping. Irritating, right?
There’s nothing more frustrating to me than crying without being able to understand the cause. I kept thinking I’d found the root but instead I kept pulling tiny weeds around the actual problem.
When I look back on my life there’s marked moments of joy and of pain from childhood to adulthood. When I worked through the landscaping of my heart I would often plant new flowers in the weeds, because I didn’t have time to deal with pulling them or sometimes I just didn’t know any better. As I continued to grow and change my landscaping, I would pull a few weeds, lay down a new layer of plastic and then plant more on top. Then the biggest storm I’d ever seen came through and ripped up the layers of plastic, dirt, and flowers leaving a huge mess I had no choice but to deal with.
Writing and revisiting the storm, its damage, and all its clean-up has shown me which weeds I’ve pulled and like yesterday it exposed a few of the roots I missed. Deep rooted boogers that tried to disguise themselves and hide beneath the plastic. But with a little teamwork I found them! (Ha! Ha! Take that you nasty roots!) And most importantly I pulled them out. It might’ve taken me until 10:30 at night to get to them but I did. I can be relentless when I need to be.
Sometimes we allow the weeds of life to overtake our hearts. Those weeds can grow into an out of control mess of thorny vines and poison. The roots can get in deep and keep our heart from growing and blossoming. Sometimes the mess is too much for us to clean up on our own but that’s why God gave us professionals, good family, and amazing friends to help. All you have to do is ask. Sometimes all you need to say is, “Things are such a mess. I don’t know where to even start.” Let your team into your heart and with some hard work and determination you’ll have a beautiful blossoming landscape again. And don’t get discouraged if it takes time. Hearts need time to mend. Hearts need time to heal. Just like beautiful flowers need time to grow and bloom. 
