AGAIN?

Oh not again. I thought I had already learned this lesson, last spring to be exact. I had even remembered now and then to check for weeds in the side yard, where hardly anyone looks. Finding the nearly waist high, inch-thick, stemmed weeds was thus an unsavory surprise and a disheartening disappointment. Again? Really?

Well, it has been a wet winter again. At least there weren't dozens of them this time.
Marshalling the armor of willpower and determination, out I went today. I knew I would not be able to spend 2 hours doing battle this time, partly because my shoulder is still tender from cutting branches in January, and partly because I procrastinated until noon, the hottest part of the day. And perhaps I have learned something since last spring: It's ok to work for short periods of time and take a break, or do a little bit every couple of days. I don't have to finish everything at once. One lesson learned, even if it's by default (read: age...)

Hmmm. It was humbling to be reminded that I had seen these weeds before. Of course they were not the very same weeds: the old ones had long ago been extracted and dried, but these weeds looked very similar, and were just as difficult to pull out, because they had be taken out as close to the root as possible.
Are these weeds tougher for having come back in the same area? I hope not. To think that the weeds in my life might have thickened and become more unyielding would be very discouraging indeed. Yet once again, my God met me in the weed patch, and gently, tenderly, helped me begin examining my weeds, their thick roots composed of a season of neglect, stubbornness, laziness that chooses the path of least resistance, some pride sprinkled in between. Ouch.
Half an hour later, a few square feet cleared of the thickest weeds, it was time to stop. It's not just the shoulder that hurts. Are a few square feet cleared in me as well? Inches maybe? How long will the change last?
And yet I'm not the same as I was last weeding season: a new perspective is being cultivated in me, I believe. A little less fear. A little more patience. A minuscule bit more of love.
However slight, perhaps the changes do last, and very little by little I am being transformed. What a patient Father we have.
"Search me, O God, and know my heart;
Test me, and know my anxious thoughts;
See if there is any offensive way in me,
And lead me in the way everlasting." (Psalm 139: 23,24).