I took the Isaiah (age 9) to Great Clips for a haircut the
other day--an occasion which he thoroughly enjoys since it involves a
motorized chair, a mirror (in which to make faces), a captive audience
(the stylist), and of course, food (a lollipop) at the end. I settled in with a
magazine by the window as he settled in to ride the chair.
It was just a haircut. What could go wrong?
"So", said the stylist, "Are you looking forward to starting school."
"Oh! I'm home-schooled," Isaiah replied. "We don't do school."
Wait, what? My head snaps up and mild panic sets in. "We do school," I mumble to no one in particular--as if to reassure myself.
I slouch down a little, and clutch my magazine a little tighter.
Stylist: "Oh, well you must do some school."
Isaiah (thinking for a long moment): "Nope. Not really. But I like playing in the creek."
My magazine started to wrinkle in my fists. I considered standing up, reciting Isaiah's daily academic schedule, and declaring my commitment to quality education, but decided against it. Instead I tried to disappear behind the cover of U.S. News and World Report.
Stylist to Isaiah: "You need to stop moving around so much."
Isaiah
(writhing to the left and holding his side): "I'm having a hard time
because on the way here, Elijah whacked me with his elbow. I'm pretty
sure I have a blister on my liver."
Stylist (lip twitching): "That sounds pretty painful."
Isaiah: "It is." (Pause) "Hey, did you know you can kill someone if you hit them really hard in the nipple?"
**At this point I will pause for a side note: If you ever want to suck all the air out of a room, try saying that. It's rather remarkable!**
As
soon as Isaiah let loose with his proclamation, every conversation in
the salon went dead. The scissors stopped. Two rows of clients and
stylists turned and clapped their eyes on the small boy who sat serenely
making faces under his new haircut.
My crumpled magazine fell from shaking fingers.
"Temple!" I half shrieked, as I rose up out of the ashes of my embarrassment like a wild-eyed phoenix.
"HAHAHA, he meant to say TEMPLE! Right, Isaiah? Temple! Not nipple! Sometimes he confuses 'dimple' with 'pimple' too."
The rest of the scene is a little blurry. I have a vague recollection of half- throwing a coupon and some money across the desk and lunging for the door.
I think my face was on fire and I'm pretty sure I saw Isaiah grab at
least two suckers, but beyond that, the details get hazy.
I may have shouted, "And we DO do school!!" to whoever was left in the waiting room as the door closed behind me, but I can't be sure.
It was just supposed to be a haircut, but like so much of my boy's life, it turned into a "memorable event", which is why I am writing this post.
My life is so much richer because of his existence, and while that is true of every single one of my children, it just so happens that I am noticing Isaiah's impact all the more right now because he is gone for his week of "Grandparents' Camp" at Papa and Grandma Sally's farm. It has only been two days and I miss his sweet face already.
There are tiny reminders of him all over the house.
The milk is lasting way too long in the fridge, as is the yogurt, and I am not finding apple cores all over the porch. The laundry has gone down by 1/3 and no one is thundering down the stairs every five minutes. But mostly I am missing his wide smile and exuberant spirit.
And his unfettered tongue.
The tracks in Isaiah's mind are fast and winding. Sometimes he gathers information, puts it together and makes an observation that wows us all. Such insight! Such wit!
Sometimes.
Other times he combines ideas and they grow hair and scream and explode, like the Great Clips episode...
...and like when we were doing a midnight crossing last month from Canada to the U.S. and the border patrol agent was doing his "friendly interrogation" of Jamey in the front, and all of the sudden Isaiah's voice comes roaring up from the back seat, "HEY DAD! HOW WOULD THEY EVEN KNOW IF YOU WERE LYING? "
Oh, my dear Isaiah! Let's just say it's a good thing he was three rows back.
Actually, I knew that Isaiah would live large and loud from the moment I met him. He arrived in haste, with bold features, wild
hair, and strong opinions on everything. He screamed for three
straight months while I scrambled to figure out what he was saying with such ear-splitting persistence.
It turns out he
didn't want gentle soothing. He wanted vigorous bouncing and tight squeezes
and music with a beat and wind on his face. He finally learned to
sleep in a hammock dangling from a spring (originally designed for crack
babies!) The bed almost never stopped moving, and that's the way he liked it.
The boy knows what he wants.
I remember one
interminable trip from NC to MI. Baby Isaiah had cried so long that three of
the other kids started crying over the torture of being trapped in the same car with
him. I felt like crying myself. I had pulled out every trick I knew.
My torso had been twisted back and wedged into the space between the two
front seats for so long that I wondered if the contortion would be permanent. In desperation, Jamey put on a Disciple CD loud enough to drown out the wails.
Within seconds of hearing the driving bass line and squealing guitars from the Christian rock band, Isaiah was asleep.
By the time he could talk, he would ask for "lullabies" and mean "anything with lots of drums".
Another
trait which manifested early was his mannish appetite. After eating
like a ravening wolf for the first half year of his life, he suddenly
went on a baby food hunger strike at 6 months, sending me into a panic.
For several days he would look at the puree I was trying to feed him
and then glare at me with steely eyes and clenched jaw. At the start of
one meal, I noticed him staring Jamey down as he ate a piece of steak.
It
wasn't possible that a six month old could be craving steak, right? How could he be?
Jamey put a few shreds of meat on his fork, waved it in front of
Isaiah's mouth, and we watched in wonder as he lunged forward, snarfed
it down, and began bouncing and grunting in his seat. Jamey scrambled to
cut up more and from that day forward, he ate man-food along with his
milk.
Yes, from day one, Isaiah has been one of those wonderful people who blaze their own trail, sing their own songs, speak their own language, and invite the rest of us to the party--if we dare.
And we do, Buddy! We dare! We all miss you, and when you have fully entertained Papa and Grandma, we'll be here waiting for you.
With apples;)
8.21.2014
The Truth About Tantrums
We don't have as many tantrums at our house as we used to, so when one occurs I am usually able to look at it less emotionally and deal with it more effectively than I did when they were being lobbed at me like random air strikes multiple times a day.
Recently, however, for old times sake one of my kids launched into a vigorous, vocal protest over something. As I walked down the hall toward the sound of screaming I thanked God that I was able view the situation so calmly. I was serene in my resolve. My face didn't get red. My throat didn't constrict. My heart didn't race.
It was more like the response I sometimes have when I notice a fat fly on the windowsill, and less like when I find a fat mouse in the silverware drawer.
Watching my little one flop and scream on the floor, I clearly saw the tender, firm, decisive course of action I would take with my tiny tyrant, and I began to congratulate myself on my calm, disciplined reaction. (It takes so little to make us proud of ourselves! :)
And then, as so often happens in my parenting, I suddenly got the uncomfortable sensation that I was watching myself.
In fact, I am firmly convinced that the reason God gives us toddlers for a few years is to gift us with vivid demonstrations of how most of us would live our whole lives if left to ourselves.
If you have ever seen a three year old take a position on--oh, let's say bedtime, you know what I am talking about.
A parent can explain the obvious logic of taking a few hours out of the sandbox for a little shut-eye.
It can be pitch black outside. The child himself can be doing head-bobs and eye-rubs. The rest of his siblings can be tucked in and snoring in front of him. The negative consequences of defying the parental mandate are both clearly laid out and fresh in his memory, and yet somehow this small bundle of nascent logic will plant his feet, cross his arms, and die on that hill like a small, screaming Braveheart. Without the blue paint.
At that moment the strength of his convictions are such that he would rather lose everything dear to him than surrender that tiny piece of worthless ground.
Can you not think of two or three adults who are living like that right now? Have you not lived there once or twice yourself?
Such is our capacity for self-deception! Such is the weak strength of human logic. Such is our need for something outside ourselves to bring us back from our own destructive tendencies, to point us to truth, and to hold us there.
The Bible even says as much. Proverbs 28:26a "Those who trust in themselves are fools, but those who walk in wisdom are kept safe."
Or 1 Corinthians 1:25, "For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength."
Or how about Jeremiah 17:9 "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked."
Or Mark 7:21 "For from within, out of the human heart, come evil ideas, sexual immorality, theft, murder."
The only way to escape the trap of our own willful blindness is to follow hard after Christ. He is the creator and dispenser of wisdom, and the fear of Him plants the seeds of it within us. (Proverbs 9:10)
The way to grow in wisdom is to learn to love the truth as found in His word. Psalm 119:104-105 says, "From Your precepts I get understanding; Therefore I hate every false way. Your word is a lamp to my feet And a light to my path."
How do I learn to hate false ways? By knowing and loving God's precepts. Is there another way? Not according to Him.
How do I keep my way pure? "By guarding it according to your word." (Psalm 119:9) Is there another way? Nope.
How long does this process take? Only until you no longer need to breathe. "Watch over your heart with all diligence, For from it flow the springs of life." Proverbs 4:23
Not just one time. Not even once in a while, but with all diligence.
It is a constant, conscious re-aligning of the heart from the moment of salvation to last breath, because the willful spirit--that relentless old man--is tugging against God and truth the entire time, like some sort of mangy, diabolical hyena.
Galatians 5:17 says, "For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please."
Romans 7:18 states, "For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out."
I think this is why so often our enemy doesn't have to work very hard to defeat us. He isn't trying to convince us to do something we really, fundamentally don't want to do. In fact sin is usually more like a whisper and a nudge than a finger in the face or a hard push.
We're just waiting for an excuse to throw down our blankie and paci and defy heaven, and Satan is happy to encourage us in that direction.
On our own, we humans inevitably seem to swing from truth and balance to lies and extremes. And then, like toddlers we try to convince ourselves that our extreme positions are, in fact, balanced.
You see this in the culture. You see it in the church. You probably see it in your own family.
And if you don't see it in yourself, you should, because the rest of us do and we're just too scared to tell you;)
The truth is, we never really outgrow our need for constant, close, and careful supervision. And redirection. And discipline.
Our earthly father and mother are given to us to help us learn to look up, to listen, and to obey, but we never mature past our need to be parented.
God's plan is that our earthly parents would lead us to Him, teach us to follow Him as they do, and eventually help us to fully transfer the mantle of their authority onto the one and only perfect Parent, our Heavenly Father.
And then live under it.
The arrogance of a five year old informing me about her new vision for bedtime is much like our human arrogance in informing God about our new vision for gossip or gluttony or sex.
Contrary to what I might insist during one of my spiritual "protests", ignoring God's word is not a sign of maturity.
Stepping outside the parameters established for me by the one who created me, loves me more than anyone, and has perfect knowledge of what is best for me does not demonstrate forward thinking.
Thumbing my nose at God's law does not prove my creativity, or open-mindedness, or superior reason, or massive intellect any more than my child's tantrum proved to me that kids don't need sleep.
As usual, I am writing this to myself--and for my children.
Dear ones, you are growing up in leaps. Someday you won't throw tantrums in your bedroom anymore, but you will likely have them in your heart. I won't see them, but God will and I will be praying you will let Him love you out of your fits before you hurt yourself or someone else.
Because you need Him.
You need Him like you needed me when you were two years old and trying to wander into the creek.
You need Him like you needed me to hold you until you finally stopped fighting me and relaxed into my arms.
You need Him like you needed me to help you see your worth and beauty.
You and I both need Him to save us from ourselves.
And someday when I am no longer here to pick you up off the floor and dry your tears and bring you to my heart, I hope that you will still reach up.
Psalm 31:19
Recently, however, for old times sake one of my kids launched into a vigorous, vocal protest over something. As I walked down the hall toward the sound of screaming I thanked God that I was able view the situation so calmly. I was serene in my resolve. My face didn't get red. My throat didn't constrict. My heart didn't race.
It was more like the response I sometimes have when I notice a fat fly on the windowsill, and less like when I find a fat mouse in the silverware drawer.
Watching my little one flop and scream on the floor, I clearly saw the tender, firm, decisive course of action I would take with my tiny tyrant, and I began to congratulate myself on my calm, disciplined reaction. (It takes so little to make us proud of ourselves! :)
And then, as so often happens in my parenting, I suddenly got the uncomfortable sensation that I was watching myself.
In fact, I am firmly convinced that the reason God gives us toddlers for a few years is to gift us with vivid demonstrations of how most of us would live our whole lives if left to ourselves.
If you have ever seen a three year old take a position on--oh, let's say bedtime, you know what I am talking about.
A parent can explain the obvious logic of taking a few hours out of the sandbox for a little shut-eye.
It can be pitch black outside. The child himself can be doing head-bobs and eye-rubs. The rest of his siblings can be tucked in and snoring in front of him. The negative consequences of defying the parental mandate are both clearly laid out and fresh in his memory, and yet somehow this small bundle of nascent logic will plant his feet, cross his arms, and die on that hill like a small, screaming Braveheart. Without the blue paint.
At that moment the strength of his convictions are such that he would rather lose everything dear to him than surrender that tiny piece of worthless ground.
Can you not think of two or three adults who are living like that right now? Have you not lived there once or twice yourself?
Such is our capacity for self-deception! Such is the weak strength of human logic. Such is our need for something outside ourselves to bring us back from our own destructive tendencies, to point us to truth, and to hold us there.
The Bible even says as much. Proverbs 28:26a "Those who trust in themselves are fools, but those who walk in wisdom are kept safe."
Or 1 Corinthians 1:25, "For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength."
Or how about Jeremiah 17:9 "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked."
Or Mark 7:21 "For from within, out of the human heart, come evil ideas, sexual immorality, theft, murder."
The only way to escape the trap of our own willful blindness is to follow hard after Christ. He is the creator and dispenser of wisdom, and the fear of Him plants the seeds of it within us. (Proverbs 9:10)
The way to grow in wisdom is to learn to love the truth as found in His word. Psalm 119:104-105 says, "From Your precepts I get understanding; Therefore I hate every false way. Your word is a lamp to my feet And a light to my path."
How do I learn to hate false ways? By knowing and loving God's precepts. Is there another way? Not according to Him.
How do I keep my way pure? "By guarding it according to your word." (Psalm 119:9) Is there another way? Nope.
How long does this process take? Only until you no longer need to breathe. "Watch over your heart with all diligence, For from it flow the springs of life." Proverbs 4:23
Not just one time. Not even once in a while, but with all diligence.
It is a constant, conscious re-aligning of the heart from the moment of salvation to last breath, because the willful spirit--that relentless old man--is tugging against God and truth the entire time, like some sort of mangy, diabolical hyena.
Galatians 5:17 says, "For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please."
Romans 7:18 states, "For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out."
I think this is why so often our enemy doesn't have to work very hard to defeat us. He isn't trying to convince us to do something we really, fundamentally don't want to do. In fact sin is usually more like a whisper and a nudge than a finger in the face or a hard push.
We're just waiting for an excuse to throw down our blankie and paci and defy heaven, and Satan is happy to encourage us in that direction.
On our own, we humans inevitably seem to swing from truth and balance to lies and extremes. And then, like toddlers we try to convince ourselves that our extreme positions are, in fact, balanced.
You see this in the culture. You see it in the church. You probably see it in your own family.
And if you don't see it in yourself, you should, because the rest of us do and we're just too scared to tell you;)
The truth is, we never really outgrow our need for constant, close, and careful supervision. And redirection. And discipline.
Our earthly father and mother are given to us to help us learn to look up, to listen, and to obey, but we never mature past our need to be parented.
God's plan is that our earthly parents would lead us to Him, teach us to follow Him as they do, and eventually help us to fully transfer the mantle of their authority onto the one and only perfect Parent, our Heavenly Father.
And then live under it.
The arrogance of a five year old informing me about her new vision for bedtime is much like our human arrogance in informing God about our new vision for gossip or gluttony or sex.
Contrary to what I might insist during one of my spiritual "protests", ignoring God's word is not a sign of maturity.
Stepping outside the parameters established for me by the one who created me, loves me more than anyone, and has perfect knowledge of what is best for me does not demonstrate forward thinking.
Thumbing my nose at God's law does not prove my creativity, or open-mindedness, or superior reason, or massive intellect any more than my child's tantrum proved to me that kids don't need sleep.
As usual, I am writing this to myself--and for my children.
Dear ones, you are growing up in leaps. Someday you won't throw tantrums in your bedroom anymore, but you will likely have them in your heart. I won't see them, but God will and I will be praying you will let Him love you out of your fits before you hurt yourself or someone else.
Because you need Him.
You need Him like you needed me when you were two years old and trying to wander into the creek.
You need Him like you needed me to hold you until you finally stopped fighting me and relaxed into my arms.
You need Him like you needed me to help you see your worth and beauty.
You and I both need Him to save us from ourselves.
And someday when I am no longer here to pick you up off the floor and dry your tears and bring you to my heart, I hope that you will still reach up.
*******************
1 John 3:1
See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be
called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world
does not know us is that it did not know him.
Isaiah 40:11
He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and
carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young.
Psalm 31:19
Oh, how abundant is your goodness, which you have stored up for those
who fear you and worked for those who take refuge in you, in the sight
of the children of mankind!
6.04.2014
You Can't Make a Silk-weed Out of a Sow-thistle
It was two years ago that I first noticed the lacy foliage poking up from behind a patch of cerastium in my garden. The leaves looked like a type of mum, so my initial thought was, "Oh, goody! My fall color is finally spreading!"
I pulled a few stray clover shoots from around its roots and tucked some mulch up under it, patted it on the head, and went off humming.
A few more leaves appeared during the season in various places--some of them nowhere near my mums and all of them a little lighter shade of green. I left them alone but a tiny doubt began to form in my mind.
**Mums don't send up suckers three feet from the mother plant, do they? Or do they? Maybe I just never noticed. It sure looks like a mum. Hmmm.**
The fall was busy and I forgot to check for flowers on the new plants.
The next year there were many more lacy leaves up and around the mums, in the lilies, in the lawn. I still thought they might be real plants--maybe a ground cover I had grabbed from the "dead and dying" racks at the nursery where I like to shop.
Anyway they were a pretty light green, softly curling at the edges--like intricately patterned cut-work lace laid out over the dark ground. It just didn't have a weed-ish expression. It was dainty and demure.
Beautiful.
I pulled a few of the ones that had nested into my more established plants, but mostly I left them alone and focused my attack on leggy crabgrass, squat clover patches, and leering dandelions.
For a second year in a row, the "mums" failed to bloom in the fall.
Year three: the faker has taken over the entire flower bed.
Deep in the ground between every one of its innocently waving leaves is a tangled web of thick, brittle runners fanning out like the spokes of a wheel--fat, white fingerlings twisting their way among the roots of my cherished perennials, strangling the life out of the smaller ones, burrowing into the heart of the larger ones, sucking water and nutrients away from the rightful occupants of my garden.
Well.
Hell hath no fury like a gardener duped (I think that's how the saying goes), so this spring I ripped into the impostor with a holy vengeance. I pulled it up until my fingers would barely close. I attacked it with Round-Up. I chopped it out with hoes and shovels. I lay on my stomach and gently, gently threaded it's fat, ugly roots out from among my iris rhizomes. I overlooked large patches of quack grass and sow thistle so I could devote more time to the eradication of THIS, the most evil and virulent of all garden foes...wait, what?
Yes, friends, it is true. I actually walked past sneering blobs of clover without bending down. I turned a blind eye to the wild carrot patch in the middle of my campanula.
In my fervor to conquer one horticultural enemy, I gave a pass to all the others.
Not a great strategy for gardening, or for life, as God reminded me with a wink as I lay in a thriving patch of pigweed, obsessively attempting to extricate one last mystery root from the belly of a purple cone flower.
When I have had my eyes opened to an area of weediness or sin in myself, I want it out! I have a deep desire to cultivate the garden of faith I have been given. I want to tend it well because I love God and I am His steward. I want it to bear fruit to please Him because I love Him. Sin gets in the way of that, and so I am vigilant--hopefully not out of legalism or pride, but out of passionate love for my Savior.
Some of the weeds I know well because I have fought them for years. They are relentless, and because I recognize them, so am I.
But sometimes sin shows up in party clothes. It flounces up all prettified and dainty, and does a spot-on impression of virtue.
And I nurture it for a while. I water it, and weed around it, and even show it off a little with a layer of mulch and a visible spot at the front of the flower bed.
But like a weed, sin never stays where it is planted. It creeps and sneaks underground and winds and tangles its way into every part of the spiritual landscape.
And after a while it starts to strangle and kill off all that is truly beautiful and useful.
A little bit later we wake with a start and realize that everything we have worked so hard for is in danger, and our love for that deceitful little impostor immediately becomes a consuming hatred.
This is good! No successful battle was ever fought with apathy and indifference, but the temptation is to become so focused on the eradication of the big invader that we open the back door to the familiar horde of little, "lesser" ones.
All weeds are bad. All sin must be yanked up and thrown out.
A mountain lion might seem less scary when you compare it to a T-rex, but both of them would gladly eat you.
Same with sin.
So, this is spiritual lesson 1,427 from my garden.
It has not helped me win the battle against my mystery invader (I'm saving up for a flame thrower), but I hope I am more sensitive to the importance of identifying and removing both the physical and the spiritual weeds from my life in a timely fashion.
Take if to heart if you find it useful. If not, add it to the compost pile;)
I pulled a few stray clover shoots from around its roots and tucked some mulch up under it, patted it on the head, and went off humming.
A few more leaves appeared during the season in various places--some of them nowhere near my mums and all of them a little lighter shade of green. I left them alone but a tiny doubt began to form in my mind.
**Mums don't send up suckers three feet from the mother plant, do they? Or do they? Maybe I just never noticed. It sure looks like a mum. Hmmm.**
The fall was busy and I forgot to check for flowers on the new plants.
The next year there were many more lacy leaves up and around the mums, in the lilies, in the lawn. I still thought they might be real plants--maybe a ground cover I had grabbed from the "dead and dying" racks at the nursery where I like to shop.
Anyway they were a pretty light green, softly curling at the edges--like intricately patterned cut-work lace laid out over the dark ground. It just didn't have a weed-ish expression. It was dainty and demure.
Beautiful.
I pulled a few of the ones that had nested into my more established plants, but mostly I left them alone and focused my attack on leggy crabgrass, squat clover patches, and leering dandelions.
For a second year in a row, the "mums" failed to bloom in the fall.
Year three: the faker has taken over the entire flower bed.
Deep in the ground between every one of its innocently waving leaves is a tangled web of thick, brittle runners fanning out like the spokes of a wheel--fat, white fingerlings twisting their way among the roots of my cherished perennials, strangling the life out of the smaller ones, burrowing into the heart of the larger ones, sucking water and nutrients away from the rightful occupants of my garden.
Well.
Hell hath no fury like a gardener duped (I think that's how the saying goes), so this spring I ripped into the impostor with a holy vengeance. I pulled it up until my fingers would barely close. I attacked it with Round-Up. I chopped it out with hoes and shovels. I lay on my stomach and gently, gently threaded it's fat, ugly roots out from among my iris rhizomes. I overlooked large patches of quack grass and sow thistle so I could devote more time to the eradication of THIS, the most evil and virulent of all garden foes...wait, what?
Yes, friends, it is true. I actually walked past sneering blobs of clover without bending down. I turned a blind eye to the wild carrot patch in the middle of my campanula.
In my fervor to conquer one horticultural enemy, I gave a pass to all the others.
Not a great strategy for gardening, or for life, as God reminded me with a wink as I lay in a thriving patch of pigweed, obsessively attempting to extricate one last mystery root from the belly of a purple cone flower.
When I have had my eyes opened to an area of weediness or sin in myself, I want it out! I have a deep desire to cultivate the garden of faith I have been given. I want to tend it well because I love God and I am His steward. I want it to bear fruit to please Him because I love Him. Sin gets in the way of that, and so I am vigilant--hopefully not out of legalism or pride, but out of passionate love for my Savior.
Some of the weeds I know well because I have fought them for years. They are relentless, and because I recognize them, so am I.
But sometimes sin shows up in party clothes. It flounces up all prettified and dainty, and does a spot-on impression of virtue.
And I nurture it for a while. I water it, and weed around it, and even show it off a little with a layer of mulch and a visible spot at the front of the flower bed.
But like a weed, sin never stays where it is planted. It creeps and sneaks underground and winds and tangles its way into every part of the spiritual landscape.
And after a while it starts to strangle and kill off all that is truly beautiful and useful.
A little bit later we wake with a start and realize that everything we have worked so hard for is in danger, and our love for that deceitful little impostor immediately becomes a consuming hatred.
This is good! No successful battle was ever fought with apathy and indifference, but the temptation is to become so focused on the eradication of the big invader that we open the back door to the familiar horde of little, "lesser" ones.
All weeds are bad. All sin must be yanked up and thrown out.
A mountain lion might seem less scary when you compare it to a T-rex, but both of them would gladly eat you.
Same with sin.
So, this is spiritual lesson 1,427 from my garden.
It has not helped me win the battle against my mystery invader (I'm saving up for a flame thrower), but I hope I am more sensitive to the importance of identifying and removing both the physical and the spiritual weeds from my life in a timely fashion.
Take if to heart if you find it useful. If not, add it to the compost pile;)
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