Weeds and Seeds

I am a frustrated gardener. I can't have house plants because it is dangerous for their health. I always kill them. My mom gave me a plant to take to college, you know, the kind that you "can't kill"..... yeah, that's right, I found a way! I had a plant that sat on my desk at work when I was in College and the janitor would come up to our office and look at my sorry plant and say, "Wow, I've never seen one of these look that bad"..... It really is a talent.

So I thought when we got our own home, our own backyard, I would try my hand at a garden. Perhaps outdoor plants would do better under my specialized care. Last year I had quite a garden. It wasn't spectacular, but for me it was quite and accomplishment. We actually ate the stuff that we grew and some of it tasted ok...... some of it didn't.  

One of the things I discovered about the ground in Santa Ynez is that it is unlike the ground in other places. It is rock hard! Even the "top soil" is just super hard. It is maddening. If you want a garden to thrive you have to own a rototiller or know someone who does and then put tons of topsoil on top of that. Unfortunately I don't own one nor do I know someone who does, so I do the best with what I've got, children and water. I send the kids out there to "dig" in the garden area and then we put water all over the ground and play in the mud, hoping that will stir and loosen things up.... unfortunately, when it dries it's just as hard as before.

So this year I was sailing on the success of last year and planted again. This time I guess I didn't plant deep enough. Our above ground pool flooded our lawn and garden a couple of times  and I guess washed away many of my seeds. The funny thing is I didn't know that so I just keep watering and waiting, watering and waiting, watering and wait.............. Finally I realized after about 3 weeks of nothing popping up that there was something wrong.

Then one day I started to see some green. I was so excited. Then I realized there was actually quite a lot of green. I was ecstatic..... So I watered all the more. Eventually the plants began to take shape but they didn't look like the leaves of a squash plant or the shoots of a pea plant or the furry leaves of a carrot...... I knew weeds would come, that is the nature of a garden, but because I had planted some new items I wasn't sure which were weeds and which were seeds, so I left them all and decided to pull the ones that didn't produce any fruit.

Last night I was awake late, couldn't sleep and the Lord reminded me of my garden and how I have weeds but there really isn't a way to tell if they are weeds just by looking at them. They are green like my squash, they need sunlight and water, but they suck the life out of plants if left to stay. On the other hand seeds produce plants that produce fruit that has seeds that produce fruit etc..... It's just like life. I may have a lot of foliage, a lot of green, but sometimes I wonder if there is ever going to be fruit. I have to ask myself is it bearing life or sucking life. Sometimes it's both. I do know that the discipline of the Lord is like a gardener coming in and pulling the weeds so that the plant can survive and then thrive.

I feel like my garden is getting a work over..... I think that is good, but it sure feels like a lot of disruption. I'm thankful He isn't content to see me grow a weak garden. I welcome the pruning.