Flowers and weeds...

The girls and I spent the Saturday morning before Easter working in our garden. The months of neglect left nothing more than dead tomatoes, dried up basil, a resilient rosemary and weeds. Tons and tons of weeds. As we were tilling up the dirt, cleaning out the dead leaves and pulling those weeds, Emersyn asked, "Mom... why do the weeds grow so fast?"

I didn't bother with a scientific answer because, frankly, I'm not sure. Instead, I used the quiet moment of the three of us together, filling our finger nails with dirt, knee deep in literal weeds to hopefully teach a lesson. 

I explained that the weeds are like sin... creeping in to take over the good parts of us. Flowers and gardens are harder to grow because they need attention and care - they need light and water and fertilizer to bear fruit. 

Just like us. 

We need His light. 

We need to be baptized in His water. 

Her need his Word to fill us and help us grow. 

I told them that we get to choose what we want to be.... 

A weed. Or a flower. 

Telling lies is easy.

Not standing up for someone is simple. 

Disobeying is in our nature.

Those are all the weeds. The weeds can take over quickly if we let them. If we ignore the truth. If we don't stand up for someone. If we do what we want instead of what we are asked... the weeds creep in. 

"But some weeds are pretty, Mommy... are they bad, too?"

And I looked at her sweet face smudged with dirt and said that yes... we can be deceived by beauty. The enemy puts beautiful things right in front of us to trick us but we have to look around that distraction and focus on what God tells us to do. 

And He tells us to keep pulling those weeds...making sure to grab them by root to make room for the flowers that are waiting to sprout.