This COVID-19 Quarantine has given me the time to weed my back yard. My social life (what little there was of it) has come to a halt, so there’s no excuse not to get enjoy the beautiful sunshine and get some much-needed weeding done. I have a small square of grass and its been neglected over these winter months. My three-month-old has also been a distraction from the lawn.
Let me iterate that I am not a gardener, not by any means, but I could see that most of my lawn was weeds. There are still a lot of weeds, but after three hours my back had had enough! I pulled up the weeds by hand mainly because I don’t have any weed killer, and I kept telling myself, its good exercise!
So much of my lawn is dead. I could not believe how effectively weeds can choke the grass. Some weeds are easy to pull out. Others require two hands pulling and heels dug in firmly. Many of the weeds grow horizontal, weaving in and out of the grass and other weeds making them impossible to spot standing from my backdoor. I end up pulling so much dead grass up along with the weed roots.
I got about three hours work done, before Baby needed feeding; plenty of time for me to think about things. Weeding is not at the top of my wish list. Art is. But a lot of my art is done indoors and sitting on my derriere, where the sunshine and exercise happens not. I may harp on about sunshine, especially as I now live in the Floridian sunshine state, but I must emphasize for 17 years of my younger life I lived in the UK; where sunshine is a rare occurrence and must be enjoyed as soon as it breaks through the clouds. You might not see it again for the next two weeks!
I was thinking about how quickly weeds can overtake a lawn if left untreated and un-managed. Weeds can tarnish our character. They can take over to where we cant see the difference between good grass and unwanted weeds. We can get so caught up in the unworthy things of this world that we can no longer see where our values and standards are.
It was a lot of hard work. It was difficult to see the shoots of grass through the weeds. I was tempted to tear up the whole lawn and start again. I thought about the wheat and the chaff Jesus refers to in the Book of Matthew. It’s left to grow together for now, but it will be separated one day, and the useless chaff will be burned. I'm so thankful He is patient with us; that He hasn't started again, that we have this period of grace. The grain will be harvested and used for good.
I want to be the good crop, the grain; the seeds that fall on fertile ground, that take root and grow a good crop yield. I will surrender myself to be pruned and weeded out; gleaned. The effort God has put into me, I want to return to Him fruit. I want Him to say, well done, good and faithful servant. I want Him to be proud of all He has given me I have invested well for His glory.
Whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. Matthew 3:12
Other seeds fell into the good soil, and as they grew up and increased, they yielded a crop and produced thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold. Mark 4:8
But He answered and said, "Every plant which My heavenly Father did not plant shall be uprooted. Matthew 15:18
But the seed in the good soil, these are the ones who have heard the word in an honest and good heart, and hold it fast, and bear fruit with perseverance. Luke 8:15