Weeds

I love having a garden. I love feeling the dirt beneath my fingers. Digging holes. Planning what vegetables i will grow. But my most favorite part is watching it grow. Daily you can see the difference in the sprouts. All it takes is a little TLC. But even with the TLC you have to watch carefully. In any garden, you will get weeds. They must be monitored and extracted quickly or they can take over your beautiful garden, destroying your crop and requiring much extra work to get your sweet vegetables right again.

It occurred to me tonight when I was watering my garden, that we, as humans, especially our children, are not much different.

We get our hands dirty, prepare, plan and plant our lives. We grow and change, sometimes daily. Somewhere along the way we autopilot our caring and watering. We watch a weed pop up and think we will get to it tomorrow when we have more time. And all too quickly, time passes and not only did we not extract our original weed, but now many more have joined it. Now we are faced with a choice. Do we take the time to clean up the mess, pull the weeds and throw them away or do we till our whole garden and start again.

We all have weeds. Some are very deep and others remain very close to the surface. Whether they are yesterdays unkind word or thought or perhaps an incident from years gone by, we all have something that holds us back from growing.

No one is immune. As much as I try to keep my garden of children carefully watered and very loved, I notice, they too have weeds. Thankfully, they are pretty much surface area weeds that are easy to pluck. But I know that if I do not pluck the weeds, ever careful to not accidentally destroy the blossoming vegetable, they will overtake my sweet tomatoes.

The same is true of any relationship that you have. Be it marriage, friendship, co-workers, family members. Are there weeds holding you back from growing? Something you can't let go of? An apology you need to make, a goof-up you can't seem to forget? A weed you accidentally plucked, that perhaps wasn't? Are you allowing weeds to grow within you that is stunting your ability to be a beautiful vegetable?

Gardening and life, certainly aren't easy. We all have weeds and we all pluck things we think are weeds only to later discover they were in fact, not!

I challenge you today, dear reader, to find a weed, either surface or deep, and pull it. Before you do, examine closely to make sure it is in fact a weed and not a wayward shoot-off of your plant.

Pick your plot, whether it is a spouse or friend or family member, all of which should love you unconditionally and accept and encourage your need to tend to your garden.

But today, no try to make it every day for 1 week, pull a weed. It can't hurt!!! It can only help your grow!