Weeds Planted

Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you. Ephesians 4:31-32

Beyond keeping our yard mowed, we do not do much to take care of the grass around our house. We have five acres and it is too much to fertilize or worry about weed control. A few months ago, our neighbor who is constantly messing with his yard, asked husband how we kept ours so green. My husband laughed and invited him to come over and look at ours closely. We do not have the nice cultivated yard of our neighbor, but native grasses and lots and lots of weeds. Hey, from the road, it all looks green doesn’t it? To the left of our back steps is a patch of weeds that everyone in our family helped to plant. It is right in the corner where the steps and the porch come together in a place that is not easy to mow. We have a big patch of Spanish needles, some thistles and some other kind of weed that I do not know the name of, but I can tell you that it has thorns that dig into your hands when you try to pull it up. There is also a large clump of sandspurs and stick tights. Now, we did not intend to cultivate them there, it just happened. Well, we did plant them, we just didn’t think about what we were doing at the time. You see, we use our back door as our main entrance. We rarely use the front door at all. Only when company comes who do not know us very well. Everyone parks in the back and comes in across the porch and through the back door. As a family, we got into the habit of when we work in the yard or even just walk through it and pick up stickers on our pants or socks, we sit down on the back steps and pull them off. You know the rest of the story. They got thrown down and once on the ground, sprouted and grew into the mess that is there now. So, we planted them, but we didn’t plan to plant them. This week, I spoke out of turn to someone. I said some things that should not have been said and it caused a great deal of worry and upheaval in her life. It may have been the truth, but was probably just my opinion. It was definitely not spoken in love, but in haste and in a desire to make myself look better than I am. My conversation was out of order, inappropriate and unnecessary. The next day, I wanted to take it all back, but unfortunately, the seeds were planted in her mind. There was no way I could keep them from taking root though I tried. It will be a long time before she gets over what I said. I need to remember, that like weeds, my words can make a mess of someone’s life if I am not careful where and how I sow them.