I yelled. A lot. At my poor kids. All I wanted them to do was clean their room. They had been in there ALL DAY and still nothing. I even tried the clean-up-one-area-at-a-time technique and still there were mounds of stuff everywhere. No matter how much I talked (or yelled), they wouldn’t listen.

So, round about 3:00, I went outside to check out the weeding that needed to be done to my garden. I took my older son with me because his room was clean (thank you, son!) but also because the garden was his idea.

A few days earlier I had attempted the weeding feat and abandoned the mission until Sevin could be applied. What kind of harmless garden bug would cause a full-on retreat you ask? A black widow that I snatched up with a handful of weeds. I shiver just typing that out.

So, after the bug stuff does it’s thing for a day or two, we go to tackle the task. My son lasts all of 10 minutes and then it’s just me. Here is a cell phone shot of what lay ahead of me:

Um. Yeah, so it’s been quite a while since I have had a chance to attend to the garden.

As I am sweating in the sun and yanking away (this time with gloves on in case I find another 8-legged “friend”) in the quiet of the outdoors, I am, of course, thinking about my own life. I fear this is what my life looks like right now. I am full of weeds. I have not been attending my heart.

My garden is so much like my life, it’s not even funny. I dove into it, full force. I was so excited to till the ground, fertalize, plant and weed for the first month or so. Then other things started to creep in and take my time and attention. I would weed a bit and then leave it for a few weeks. I even ruined my tomatoes by not staking them in time. :(

Just like my garden, with the hurt that we endured almost a year ago, my heart was not ready to give itself away to other people. I hadn’t let Him heal me properly (or at all!). So, just like my garden, I tried to be a rock again — full force — and the result of that is troublesome weeds (and probably some spiders lurking around).

There is good news in all of this, though. As I pulled the weeds — which is such a large job, I am still not finished — I found a few suprises. Surprises that don’t bite and send you to the emergency room. Things I couldn’t see through the weeds, but were there nonetheless:

A sweet little squash that I had NO IDEA was there.

And a fairly large Moon and Stars watermelon.

Even with all of the weeds, the garden was producing fruit. I can only hope and pray that I have been producing fruit as well, even with all of my weeds.

I know this day was important (hey, it spawned this blog) because it was a double whammy day. After all was said and done I looked back on my day and thought not only about the garden, but about my children and their messy room. Here I had been yelling at them all day to clean saying things like, “I don’t know what it’s gonna take to get you boys to just spend a few a minutes and get this mess cleaned up!”

I have a feeling God has been saying that to me for a while now.

I leave you with scripture that I didn’t even know was scripture for the first 18 or so years of my life, even though I sang it every Sunday. This is my prayer:

10 Create in me a pure heart, O God,
and renew a steadfast spirit within me.

11 Do not cast me from your presence
or take your Holy Spirit from me.

12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation
and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.

Psalm 51:10-12

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