Day 11: Weeds

It may seem strange to feel gratitude for weeds and yet I am deeply grateful for weeds. I've learned a lot from weeds over the years. I have a healthy respect and awe of them. They come in all shapes and sizes. Some are amazingly resilient. Others are rather easy to control and get rid of. So why the gratitude? Weeds represent the opposition. Somehow I enjoy my flower beds more because of the energy I have to exert to overcome the weeds.



Among the more resilient of weeds in this part of the world is a monster called bind weed. It is often mistakenly called morning glory which is not a weed but a beautiful flowering vine. Bind weed is almost impossible to irradicate. Sure you can pull out the green stuff above the ground. You can try to pull out the roots. You can spray it with any number of weed killers. You may get on top of it for a season but it always seems to come back. Sometimes with extreme diligence over a period of years you can get rid of it. It has been in my quest to rid my yard of bind weed that I've realized how much bind weed is like the vices and addictions in our lives.

You can pull out the bind weed and the surface of the flower bed looks clean for awhile but if you leave even the smallest bit of the root structure behind (and it is almost impossible to pull out all of the roots) it will regenerate into a new plant. What was once a single plant becomes a dozen as each of the small pieces of the root system regenerate. So it goes with the vices in our lives, we can remove the surface signs of our sin but unless we get out the last bit of the root structure we run a high risk of the vice coming to the surface again. About the only way to get rid of the bind weed is through constant vigilence at removing the plant when it surfaces and planting other stronger plants in the bed which will eventually dominate and prevent the bind weed from being able to establish a hold.

So it goes that in the weeding of souls we must dig deep, suffer some pain, and get all of the roots.