Rooting Out the Weeds: Dealing with Problems at the Source

I am home, like many folks worldwide, due to the ubiquitous pandemic known as COVID-19, the Coronavirus.  It is amazing to think that at New Year’s, most of us outside the medical profession had no idea what a ‘coronavirus’ was.

Being home suits me just fine.  I’ve seldom had a problem coming up with things to do; my summers as a teacher FLY by, rather than drag from boredom.  In some ways, I fear I’m a recovering, undiagnosed introvert. 

So, yesterday, I was doing some tasks that seldom seem to get done.  One of them is yard work.  We have this lovely little cove-like entrance that leads to our front door, almost like something out of The Secret Garden, give or take some ivy and a few walls.

Only recently, I realized it was becoming more like something from a horror movie, and that I’d neglected it far too long.  I also wondered if Amazon and pizza delivery people feared for their lives when they left the relative safety of the driveway, and ventured down the wooden walkway to the front door.

Thank goodness we have also recently started to remedy that.  We just had the house and vinyl fencing scrubbed and cleaned this weekend, and it looks SO much better. And I’ve been trying to do some long overdue weed-pulling.  Yesterday, I steeled myself to tackle the insidious vines running unchecked through my fern bed, leading to the front door.

Well, it’s just ridiculous.  Most of the time, you can’t see the origin of the vine.  I’d pull and pull, and they’d eventually snap.  It was good to have it gone, but I know full well, without getting the root up, it’s only a temporary fix.  And when I was close to the source, it was on the other side of a fence, near my A/C, on a side of the house that I can’t get to.  Or at least, I’m afraid to get to.

It’s scary back there, y’all.

(And yes, I know that’s not good for my A/C.  I’m going to either have to send the hubs, or get him to pay someone to get back in there with a machete.)

So, my solution was to deal with what I could see.  Thank the Lord I had garden gloves on, but even so, one of those vines had these thorns all up and down it.  It was the devil’s vine. I rebuked it with all the anointing I could muster.

I look some herb scissors that I had (because I couldn’t get to the garden tools in the locked shed) and cut that thing as close to the root—or at least the fence—as I could get.  There was an ENORMOUS vine, too, almost quarter-sized in diameter.  I tugged on that for all that I was worth, and again, some snapped off.  I knew I needed to remove what I could, so I pulled out the herb scissors, and wondered how long I’d be sawing away with them.  They’re not exactly hedge clippers, if you know what I mean.

It cut through like butta.

Suddenly, I thought: It looked so much tougher than it really was.  All this time, it’s been growing, and growing, and sending out its runners, wreaking havoc on my fern bed.  And all I needed to do was snip it off at the source, and refuse it to continue its advance.

I know it would be better to dig it up at the root.  I have dug up those awful things before, and they are big, ugly bulbs that bury themselves pretty deep under the surface.  It’s best to get it there.  But in the meantime, until I can find the root—I’ll just cut off its access to the things that I want to live and be healthy.

That is the way we have to approach our lives.  We MUST root out everything we can that wants to choke the living daylights out of our relationship with God and those He has called us to love.  Sometimes, at first, we can’t get to the root—but we can certainly deprive the weed of access to the things that are most important, and pray that God’s grace and mercy leads us to the source of the problem, so we can TAKE IT OUT, with His help.  Sometimes there will be thorns—and they hurt, I know.  But the end result is worth a little pain on this side.  When it’s gone, it’s GONE.

Come to think of it, it's kind of what we are doing to help stop the spread of this virus--deprive it of new places to fester, and new people to infect. Go figure.

God, you are the BEST gardener, the One who started by planting the perfect garden!  You are WELL ABLE to tend to the things that need pruning, nurturing and harvesting in my life.  I put myself in Your Hands, and ask You to give me wisdom to see the weeds I can’t even tell are there, trying to choke out my relationship with You.  Thank you for your mercy, and grace.

You are the One that makes good things grow.