Weeding the garden of the heart

Wednesday, April 30, 2003
Dawn Cribbs

Homeowners once again, Danny and I are engaged in good stewardship of the land and property appointed to us.

The house is old, but sound. These walls have seen some characters through the years, of that there can be no doubt. If they could speak, the stories they would tell would give us laughter, tears and perhaps moments of utter disbelief. But they have character in and of themselves and we will surely enjoy the many projects offered within them.

Having served as a rental property for many years, odd items have been left behind from a multitude of tenants. Three buckets full of various cleaning supplies were discovered, so my household budget won't have to stand that strain for quite some time. Bed frames, headboards and sheets of leftover building material are also among the castoffs, but one category of typically left-behind items is conspicuous in its absence.

There is not to be found, under the stairs, tucked away in a cabinet, or carefully laid upon the storage shed shelves, one single garden hose or lawn sprinkling apparatus. Not one. In fact, the outside water faucet was inoperable and we held our breath while turning it on for the first time. No water, fed by human hands, has touched this property in far too long and the yard area (you cannot call it "lawn") shows the result of years of neglect.

Spring, praise the Lord, has sprung and restoration plans are under way. The healthy crop of weeds has been turned under and plans have been formed for flower beds and a patch of ground has been selected for the tomatoes. Lilacs are the first order of business for the west side of the property, and a couple of rose bushes should grace the eastern side nicely.

We have our work cut out for us, though we are postponing the actual planting of the green, green grass of home until late summer so as to avoid stressing the new growth with summer's unrelenting heat. Establishing the flower beds and transplanting bushes should be project enough for this first growing season.

However, the ground will need some tending through the summer months to keep the weeds from reappearing.

Weeds are a hardy lot, and hate to lose their place in this world. They serve a purpose, I know, for they hold the soil in place when nothing else will grow to do so and they take their job very seriously. However, they cannot have this piece of earth back. We have plans for it.

To keep them at bay, it will be necessary to loose them from their moorings as soon as they appear. With some, all that is required is a light raking of the surface, just enough to expose the roots to the air, where they wither and soon die. Others will take more aggressive action. It depends on the weed, but a quick response will be the easiest solution. We'll just grab 'em and yank 'em, uprooting them before they have a chance to reclaim the ground lost to them.

Some will require more than a good yank. Good, strong medicine is the only viable solution. I speak of the ubiquitous goatheads. These little prickers stab my bare feet and flatten my bicycle tires with too much regularity. They are nasty critters and will soon be history.

Some weeds can fool you. One recently appeared, sporting a lovely lavender bloom. "Are you sure that's a weed?" I asked. I was assured that it is indeed and not worth the tradeoff.

The pre-eminent weed in my memory grew with abandon in the once award-winning flower bed in front of the Child Nutrition Office/Warehouse in Brighton.

Landscaping fell to the occupants of the office which meant that my boss and I could be found in mid-spring to have planting soil under our fingernails and discarded nursery flats in our waste cans. About four years after the flower bed was put in place, weeds began to appear.

Oh, we'd always battled the occasional dandelion, brought on by the winds of summer, and bindweed was a constant battle, snaking around each little plant, appropriating precious nutrients and seeking to choke off the flowers as they bloomed, but during that fourth year the weeds from "H. E. double toothpicks" made their presence known.

Spiny stalks defeated all but the thickest gardening gloves, and the roots were tenacious. We surmised that they had taken years of invisibility to send those roots deeper and deeper as they sought to send shoots higher and higher to the warmth promised by the summer sun. They would not be defeated by ordinary or even extra-ordinary means. Eventually, the flower bed was overrun, and everything had to be destroyed.

Weeds are a lot like sin and weeding -- repentance. We discover the weeds in our life, and dutifully yank them out, seeking to undo their hold on our lives. Then, little by little, they reappear, seeking to hold again the ground that once was their own. Only by quickly attending to their re-emergence, while their roots are yet unestablished, do we succeed in vanquishing them from our lives.

Some sins, like the lovely lavender weed, are appealing, at least at first glance. Seeing only the loveliness, we trade room for something truly beautiful for a poor imitation.

And some sins, like the weeds that had hidden for years in the flower bed, have strong roots that go deeper than we can reach, and though they seem small when they first appear, the root is well-grounded and not easily dislodged.

A man can change many things about himself. He can abandon bad habits and adopt new and better ones. And he should. It is good stewardship of the life that has been appointed to him. But only God can change the heart of a man.

Only God can safely uproot the deep-seated sins of our hearts and vanquish them. Only God can do this without utterly destroying the man himself.

"'Not by might, not by power, but my Spirit', says the Lord Almighty." Zechariah 4:6

-- Dawn Cribbs, a grateful homeowner, looks forward to getting dirt in her fingernails again, and again, and again.

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