Out of the Garden, Onto the Curb                                                     October 25, 2014

I’m a clutter bug.  As a gardener, writer, crafter, reader, seamstress and quilter I accumulate little piles of things here and there until they take on a life of their own, moving silently when my back’s turned.  Books mysteriously sneak underneath a stack of quilting squares; I find garden catalog pages stuck in with the bills on my desk.

Honestly I do a pretty good job of keeping up with it all… at least, if you come over for a cup of coffee there are empty chairs for nestling (sigh.)  Nonetheless, I recently came to the conclusion that additional shelving and organization is required out in my sewing room.  Off to Lowes!

They actually have an entire section in Lowes called ‘home organization.’  Amazing.  I found the shelves that match those I currently have, thinking I would simply add two more sets to extend capacity for fabric, beads, song books, etc.  Yikes!  Shelves that once cost $35 were now almost $80—definitely not an option with my Saturday pocketbook after the bills have been paid.

“You’re not getting them?” my husband asked.  “Nope.  I’ll wait until God puts them on sale or shows me something better,” I replied.  (In my experience good things really do come to those who wait.)

A day later after church my honey left the house to run some errands.  Within five minutes he was back.  “Come on, get on the car, there’s something I want to show you,” he said.

A quarter mile down the street a couple was dragging old things out of their house and piling them on the curb for the trash men to take away.  Standing sturdily among the heap was an old, large, heavy dresser with six big and forlorn-looking drawers stacked nearby.  It had once been covered with a blond veneer (a ‘50s favorite) that had been stripped away from all but two of the drawers.

I could see that with good cleaning and a little paint (actually $38 for paint, new knobs and a little sandpaper) the dresser could be transformed “Can I buy this from you?” I asked the man.  “No, please, just take it away,” he replied.

Several weeks later I’m happy to report that at least one area of the sewing room is now clutter free, fabric having been sorted and stored in my ‘new’ clean white dresser.  Yay! 

How like the human condition… we once enjoyed the pleasures and safety of the Garden, so sure of Divine acceptance that we didn’t even ponder God’s love.  Along comes sin, and stripped of our veneer, we are tossed out of the Garden onto to the curbside, presumably at the end of any purpose or value.

We are rescued, cleaned up and given a new purpose and divine value—but here ends the analogy between my dresser and our lives.  In the reality of God’s kingdom on earth today, we are far more than just “cleaned up.”  Through the in-dwelling of the Holy Spirit we are transformed, made brand new and shown the truth about our place in God’s eternal life!  We are given a revelation of God within us, and the peace that we are within Him, too, through Christ.  At last we can understand “the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the Lord’s people. To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.”  (Colossians 1: 26 and 27)

Spring at Last

Yay!  It’s spring and I’m back in the garden, making up for lost time after a very hot fall and a colder than usual winter…

In the side garden I had let the fall weeds grow up into the shrubs and hedges, now paying the extra price because it’s harder to extract them when they’re brown and brittle and thoroughly intertwined.  (I’ve not been a faithful gardener this past year.)  Ruellia stalks are everywhere, English ivy went on a rampage, and scads of wild raspberry vine had built no mean empire right under my nose, except that I was looking the other way.

Armed with a long-sleeve shirt and long pants, my pruners and clippers and pruning saw, I had plenty of yard trash bags just waiting to be filled.  God supplied an absolutely lovely day (low 70’s, low humidity and a wash of spring sunlight) so no reason to delay the inevitable!  I pulled out crab grass, Spanish moss, blue-eyed grasses and sticky vine.  Virginia creeper and some unknown leafy “weed” (ULW) were added to the piles along with sweet gum, camphor and oak seedlings (anyone need some trees?)

Some of these things popped right out of the damp ground when I pulled, but others were a little trickier.  In the liriope hedge I bent down and very carefully extracted the hundreds of ULWs, which easily snapped off just above the soil, leaving long roots in the ground if I didn’t pull just right.  Newly sprouting raspberry vines hid from view under the rose shrubs and azaleas, and sticky vines and wild peas attached to other plants so that when I pulled them their roots also remained in the moldy mulch. 

It occurred to me as I worked that these little guys were a great analogy for the weeds that can choke our lives in God’s spiritual Garden—how important it is to get a good grip on them and make sure the roots are extracted with the plant so there’s nothing to grow back.  It’s so easy to take up the electric hedge trimmers and trim the hedge, lopping off the obvious green briars and other things that poke out the sides and top without taking the time to go into the hedge and get them out by the roots.  A faithful gardener does this, for it assures that the hedge will be clean and healthy for decades to come.

God is a faithful Gardener (John 15:1.)  His Holy Spirit points out the weeds (AKA strongholds) in our lives: perfectionism, envy, laziness, jealousy, pride, a judgmental or complaining spirit, among others.  When these things are too far grown up in our Garden-life, it’s amazing how comfortable we become with their presence, often never seeing them for what they are—weeds of evil that entangle us and take us down.  (Remember that evil is ‘live’ spelled backwards; sooner or later evil brings about death.)

The Good News is that God is waiting to be allowed to come into our Garden and remove—with our permission—these contrary growths, reaching all the way down for the last tiny root and then applying His balm of healing in its place.  We can trim the hedge on the outside, continue to “look good” to others, and feel miserable inside OR we can let Him help us become renourished and ready for a spring and summer full of good growth and peace in His blessed light.

As we remove the big weeds, it becomes easier to see the smaller, more ubiquitous weeds hiding underneath, and with our soil tilled daily by His hand these are quickly removed, too.  Keep a short account with your weeds--  I can tell you after 6 hours in today’s garden, I’m counting on God’s power to be able to walk upright tomorrow!  I praise Him because He is faithful in every way :o)