Stubborn. Pesky. Relentless. Unwanted. Aggressive. Frustrating.
These are the words that my husband (and nearly anyone who
wants a nice, landscaped yard) would use to describe that little yellow bud
that seems to grow just about everywhere (and usually in all the places you don’t
want it to).
Why are they so annoying to gardeners? These “weeds” pop up
seemingly overnight, despite my husband’s best efforts to get rid of them. He
will painstakingly go through the yard and handpick them out by their roots –
time after time after time – to try to keep them from coming back.
They somehow have the power to grow in the worst conditions –
in rocky terrain, bad soil, horrible heat and even in the cold. It's almost as if these bad conditions make that pesky weed that much stronger.
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| Brody was so proud of that little flower! |
The other day, I went for one of our morning walks with my
son and my hubby. It’s a short walk around our neighborhood, and it ends by a
small swing set, which of course Brody loves. This particular day, as he was
joyfully running towards the swing, something caught his eye. Suddenly, he stopped
and bent down. He looked at my hubby and me, and with a big smile, he pointed
and said, “Fwow-er (Flower)!” With a little prompting from my husband, Brody
bent down again, picked it up and gleefully ran to me with his hand outstretched, giggling the whole way.
This tiny yellow bud was sticking out from between his fingers as he hugged me
and repeatedly said, “Fwower! Fwower!”
In that moment, this little weed that would normally be
considered a nuisance, waiting to be picked and tossed aside, was the.most.beautiful
flower that God ever created. Why? Because
Brody thought so. Because of that, he wanted me to have it. The joy in his eyes
as he looked from that beautiful little weed and into my eyes was contagious.
Have you ever felt that you were like a dandelion? That you
have been overlooked, cast aside, or forgotten? Know that you are made in the
image of God, and because of that, you have the power of the Almighty God of
all of Heaven inside of you! The same dandelion that pops up in your yard
overnight, is the same flower that grows in wastelands and dessert places, in
rocky hillsides and murky waters. It brings its bold beauty, strength, and
resiliency to the most unlikely places. And the same is true for your life.
A quick internet search can tell you that the dandelion
roots go deep into the soil. Snapping them off at the top doesn’t kill them,
but rather, it makes them grow back stronger and fuller. And when they grow, they have one of the longest flowering seasons of any plant.
So know this my friend: when life gets hard,
when you feel like you can’t go on, sink your roots deep into God’s truth and you
will see just how resilient, beautiful, and spectacular you really are! May you look at your life with the same joy and enthusiasm of a child, knowing that you are the most precious thing that God has created.
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| “And not only that, but we also rejoice in our afflictions, because we know that affliction produces endurance, endurance produces proven character, and proven character produces hope. |
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