A very large bunch of weeds fills a vase on my kitchen table tonight. When I took my littles to a park the other day, the two oldest came running up to me with their hands overflowing with these WEEDS.
"Momma, look what we found growing all over?! FLOWERS!!! We picked some for you and some for Daddy!"
Momma's response: "Oh, how lovely! Thank you! Why don't you keep them for me?" (What mother hasn't tried this one before? :))
"Oh, no, Momma! They're too beautiful! You HAVE to take them home and put them in a vase so we can show Daddy!!! Here. Hold them for us."
And with that, I was left sitting with my lap OVERFLOWING with
I never did have the heart to tell them the truth.
That it's really a vase full of WEEDS.
But you know what? Sometimes we grown-ups try too hard. We're almost LOOKING for the weeds. When life hits us, as it so often does, we're expecting weeds, we see the weeds, we GET weeds. The baby cries for the 100th time today, and we see weeds. Older child won't pay attention in school, and we see weeds. Husband doesn't react the way WE think he should, and there are those ugly old weeds again. Friends let us down, family disappoints us, and all we can see is the weeds.
One by one, the trials of life (whether big or small) come our way, and instead of embracing gratefulness, instead of thanking God for loving us enough to allow us to be tested, instead of LOOKING FOR THE GOOD and counting our sweet blessings, we're too busy with our head in the weeds.
This week, I learned a lesson from the vase of weeds on my kitchen table. I'm determined, by God's grace, to see the flowers in life....
When the laundry must be folded, I'm using the time to pray for each person as I fold their clothes.
When the messy areas in my home encompass more floor space than the clean areas, I'm praising the Lord there are children to make the messes.
When the pressures of life (money, job, family, friends, ministries) seem to overwhelm me, and I feel I can't do it ALL......I'm looking for the flowers.
We got home from the park that day, and the littles ran off to play outside. A few minutes later, they ran into the house with some GREAT news:
"Momma, you'll NEVER guess!! We have tons of those same BEAUTIFUL flowers IN OUR OWN YARD!!!"
Yep, I'll be seeing the
What a lovely post. I think the weeds are beautiful-they look like spearmint or similar herbs. Great outlook on them, too.
ReplyDeleteRuby
Great reminder to see every experience as from the loving heavenly Father. I got the same "flowers" from my girls this week and they insisted that daddy not mow over their flowers.
ReplyDeleteI think your "flowers" are beautiful! I recently took a gardening class and learned that a weed is anything that grows where you don't want it to grow, so if you had intentionally planted those, they would not be weeds. On the other hand, daffodils sprouting up where you don't want them would be weeds. So, it's all a matter of perspective :) Anyway, I love what you had to say about weeds/flowers in daily life. I've always thought about the "weeds" in my life (and my childrens') as the habits I want to pull out and replace with sweeter things - good attitudes, more Godly character qualities, better perspective, etc. Great post.
ReplyDeleteI came across your blog whilst looking for 'flowering weeds'. What I found on this page was a total surprise! A beautiful family :-) God bless you and your family! Always!!
ReplyDelete