One of my team’s ministry assignments is to weed the garden at the church. Let me tell you about these weeds: they are horrid! We can spend hours picking them out of the ground and two days later, they are right back up as green as can be. The first time it happened, we were super confused because we had just plucked them and they were back! Then we realized that the only way we could get rid of the weeds for good is if we pulled them out from the roots. Picking the weeds out with the roots is time consuming, difficult, and hurts your fingers. I know that it’s what I have to do in order to not weed every day of my life, though.
I was telling my mom about the weeds situation: how it’s a constant job because they continue to come back up. She said “Has to be a God message in the weeding” and it hit me. There is a message in the weeds, a message that makes complete sense in my life but I’ve been missing it since day one.
The garden is my heart. My issues & negative emotions are the weeds. The rain is when life happens, you have a bad day or a situation comes up. You see what I’m trying to say? I can “fix” my problems on the surface level, just dealing with what I can see and not getting to the root. My issues and negative emotions won’t be there for a day or two and I think that all is good, but when life starts to happen those issues will come back. Why? Because I never dealt with the root cause of the issue. I need to go through some digging in order to find the root causes of my issues and emotions I feel, which will take time and may be painful. But once I find the root and dig it out, they won’t be there. I will have restoration and healing. I will have one less weed to pluck when it rains.
So this week is the week of weeds! As I physically pull weeds out of the garden, I will be pulling weeds out of my heart. Not surface level stuff, but the roots and all! I am tried of thinking I deal with my issues and emotions just to have them come back up. I will be digging to the root causes of the emotions I feel and the issues I face. It will take time and lots of work, but I know the end result will be amazing. God and I will be doing a lot of gardening this week and weeks to come. I am excited to share the aftermath of our work!
Much love from El Salvador,
Bailey
