Lessons from weeds

I did it again – I left the weed situation in our front garden for too long until they seemed to be growing an alarming few inches every day. This afternoon I donned my ultimate island fashion accessories – my trusty green wellies – and retrieved the garden fork from the storeroom. I didn’t make a dent in the ground though and I guess Nick felt a bit sorry for me, so he tucked in with the fork, loosening up the roots so I could do the rest. It always seems to me that God gave us weeds (apart from that they are presumably part of Adam’s curse) as an object lesson in sin: If you leave them too long they become difficult to remove, can be painful, take loads of time to deal with, and sometimes you even need to call in for extra earthly help – in my case, a pastor ;-) . The big weeds which were in the middle of the garden were easier to remove…big sins are the easiest to get rid of, while the seemingly small ones have deep roots. If you leave them in for too long they go to flower and seed, and then there are all manner of on-going consequences to deal with. And of course, while weeds grow quickly, they don’t bear any fruit of value. True works of grace take longer to grow, but are so much sweeter. The little mango trees in their infancy had nearly been choked out. Anyway, an aching back and nearly two hours later I had filled three black bags and cleared about half the patch.

The boys were back at Cubs / Beavers this evening after the holidays. Caleb went fishing with the Cubs and came home with a starfish! We think it's already dead but have put it in salt water just in case it revives. And now for today's macro offering - I found this beautiful specimen lying belly-up under the clothes airer, causing us to wonder whether it went through the wash cycle and fell off a garment later? Whatever the case, we nicknamed it Dizzy during the shoot.