We all have to pull a few weeds in our lives now and again. The yard I inherited used to be filled with big, beautiful plants, surrounded by painted white rocks and stones around every coconut tree and flower bed in both the front and side yards. When I moved in, all that was left was the skeleton white rocks of the former beds along with all the weeds that had begun to pop through the visqueen and take root over the time they had been locked underneath that black blanket of plastic. I don’t really like to pull weeds, but it looks so much better once I dedicate the time to work on it. I even begin to enjoy the feel of the earth and dirt on my hands as I dig. In the end, the results are certainly more than worth the effort. Besides, it’s kind of like our lives. We don’t always want to dig deep inside and pull out the junk inside ourselves to make room for growth and positive change, but if we want to be everything God intended for us to be, then that’s just a part of it...we have to pull the logs out of our own eyes before attempting to take the speck out of someone else’s eye. We have to strip down to the bare bones of who we are, clearing out the dirt of bad choices along the way in order to decide who we want to be and how we can learn from our mistakes. I grieved for a long time over my mistakes; I beat myself up about them daily, and I carried the shame of my failures on my shoulders and in my heart until it almost destroyed me. Then, God gave me the strength to make the terrifying decision to move on with my life, to let go of my guilt and live again. Even weeds can begin to sprout flowers and disguise themselves as something more than a weed, so we have to watch carefully to determine what’s worth holding onto and what we need to get rid of to keep us on the right path. I’ve had to pull a lot of weeds along the way, and weeds being weeds, they will spring up again before I even know it, but as long as I stop now and again to pull them up and plant something else beautiful and worth keeping in their place, I’ll be more than okay.
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