Among The Dandelions

Creation draws me to worship. Often when I'm not even intentional about finding God in creation...it (worship) just comes over me and my heart is drawn to a truth about the Creator. It happens to me, a lot.

A couple of weeks ago my lawn was attacked my dandelions. It drives me crazy to have weeds in my yard, especially my front yard. First I bought a little bottle of weed killer to spray individual weeds in my front yard, 48 hours later the weeds were still there plus more - that didn't work.
Then I bought some fertilizer to spread on my lawn that doubles as a dandelion killer - YES! I was so excited, this was going to work. Well, it did work, but only kind of and it took some time to take effect.
Finally, I decided to get a screw driver and a bucket and get down on my hands and knees and pop each weed out by the root, one at a time.

Guess who met me among the dandelions - God. I know it may sound strange or weird or over spiritualized but it's really true I had a worship experience while I was pulling up those weeds. Here are some of the ponderings of my heart while I worked.

It was a Tuesday. I was pulling weeds and thinking how much I wish my neighbors would work on the weeds in their lawns so the seeds would stop blowing into my yard and taking root. I'm telling you there are some serious "Dandelion Farms" on my street. As I was thinking this I had the thought that there is some symbolism between the weeds and sin, in my life and in the lives of others.
I was convicted about my attitude of I work too hard on my yard for it to be possible for weeds to grow here, and I work too hard for the yards of my neighbors to be affecting my yard. I started thinking if weeds represent sin, do I think that in my own life? Do I pride myself on my relationship with Christ and my time reading the Bible and doing good works and believe that with all that my life won't have some weeds in it? Let me just say that I KNOW that I sin, I fail, I mess up and I certainly do NOT have it all together. So because I know that about myself, how often am I willing to get down on my hands and knees with my tools and pull out each weed one by one?

Truthfully, sometimes I think, "Ah, I'll just take a quick walk across the yard and pull the yellow heads off the top so when people drive by it will look like a nice clean lawn."
Or, "I'll just spray the one's I can see, that'll be enough."
And then in the end, that only takes care of a few. And I have to take the hand that God is offering me and meet Him in the "dandelions" and he brings out the tools and when I let him, he'll pull them out, root by root. And then my life (my "yard") has moments of peace and rest and order - and always a reliance on God.

A friend said to me one day, "I don't like dandelions either, but ya know if you actually just look at them as a flower they're kind of pretty."
That maybe true of the actual weed, but in regards to sin, I think we do this sometimes, rationalize the sin, like, "it's not so bad, or maybe you should look at it this way? What's the big deal?"

I want people in my life who will come along side me and say, "Correnta, I care about you too much to let you leave all these weeds in your life. Let's get out some tools and get to work." Some times those words can come in gentleness and other times I think they need to come out in tough love (even though no one is ever comfortable with tough love - including me...eeeee, uncomfortable!). Thank you to the sweet people in my life who are willing to love me in the midst of my weeds but encourage me to also pull them out.

That Tuesday night, I was tired but I looked out across my yard and thought, "That was work, but it was worth it. Look at my yard!"

Guess what, Wednesday afternoon when I came home for lunch, 5 more dandelions had popped up in my front yard.
I thought, "Well, you can't get them all on the first sweep." So I got my bucket and screwdriver and went to work. All better.

Thursday, same thing.
Friday, even more! This was getting annoying, and then my heart started to ponder, "That's life on earth Correnta. You'll never be completely without weeds. But that's the love and grace of God, that 'while we were still sinners, Christ died for us' (Romans 5:8) and he offers us grace and mercy and forgiveness, 'If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.'(1John 1:9)"

I learned a lot more among the dandelions, but this blog is getting long. If you want to know you can ask me. I'd love to share.

Some scripture that I meditated on in the yard and since then...
1John 1:8- 2:2
Matthew 13:1-30, 36-43
Romans 5:8