I am a city girl. I don’t like to get dirty. Not one bit! I grew up on the Texas coast, but I hate the beach. And I know absolutely nothing about farm animals or plants.
Several years ago, my mother introduced me to the joy of caring for potted flowers. I was struggling with great sadness, and she thought it would cheer me up. To my surprise, she was right. I was also good at it. I began to take great pleasure in putting myself to the test to see how long my flowers would bloom and how many blooms I could provoke by using natural methods. (The coffee grounds left over at the end of the drip cycle are my flowers’ favorite snack.)
Sometimes I pick a new type of flower to keep in my pots. This is one such year. I have a Gerbera daisy on my patio table.
It has really struggled, and I have managed to nurse it back to life. Almost immediately, I found weeds in the pot. I pulled them this morning. This evening I went outside and checked the pot. I suspect I may have two plants.
One side of the pot has healthy blooms. The other side has a dying plant, and the soil has dried up since my watering this morning and there were six more weeds that had shot up during the day.
I pulled them up by the roots and watered the pot again.
Isn’t that how it is sometimes with spiritual things? No sooner do we revive a struggling soul but something comes along and sucks up all the energy needed for life, and we come along again and find the person limping along at half-strength, with emotional weeds growing and stealing all the joy, and we need to root all the stuff out that is taking up the nourishment and flourishing where the beautiful fruit and flowers should be growing!
I spoke to a friend about my daisy this morning. She hummed in appreciation and then said, “That’s what happens with daisies. And you can’t use weed killer, because it would kill the daisy too.”
That, too, is like what happens in the spiritual life. We must keep rooting things out, one by one. Otherwise we would kill the beautiful fruit and flowers that would return to life once the rooting is done.
I won’t be giving up on my daisy. Don’t give up on your fruit and flowers!
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