The outcome of grief grows like an uninvited weed taking full control of every beautiful part of our garden we took time to care for and cultivate. Everything once grown into our organized idea of true beauty is now tangled in a natural web of weeds. All our hard work. All our hopes and dreams are suffocated.
Still, The Master Gardener is at work. We are only the apprentice.
The devastation drops you to your knees. Forced to observe joy with a completely different perspective and heightened awareness. Forced to begin again. Forced to continue on. Forced to renew your soil. It’s exhausting. The energy is drained. We stay down at the foot of the garden wondering how we will ever repair what is lost. We are forced to be covered in the mud and mosquitos, the sun and heat, the wind and the rain, the drought and the seasons, frustrated nothing stays the same. Like a wasp working ever so diligently to build his mud tube, only to be knocked down by a greater force of nature. Will it ever end? How can life be so difficult? So challenging. So frustrating. So confusing. So cruel. So hopeless.
We stay down at the foot of the cross.
We wait.
We surrender.
Through prayer and patience, in time and by way of the Master’s hand, a tiny sprout of hope begins to break through. For out of the dirt springs new life. We finally start to see what separates the weeds from our garden plants.
Weeds grow fast. They grow anywhere and in all the wrong places. In all the right places. Weeds grow between sidewalk cracks. They grow along freeways. They stand tall. They endure. They persevere. They weather the storm. They are pioneers. They have purpose. Weeds rebuild soil! The soil necessary to renew and redefine our Soul’s garden. Weeds also produce quick carbon. Carbon produced by way of photosynthesis, using the darkest nights and the brightest sunlight, creates lifesaving oxygen, found in the air we breathe.
All in divine order, weeds thrive and survive. We are like the weeds; we are survivors!
Grief comes in all shapes and sizes. In this life we all have a cross to bear. For some it’s relationships, others might face health challenges, for many it’s money and still others, death. Regardless of the burden, we still rise!