reach

Jul 8

As a little girl, I was lured by dandelions one afternoon. Sitting on a daycare hill, my teacher showed us how to fashion little yellow crowns. They appealed to my girly nature and made me feel simultaneously alive and proudly beautiful.

A week later, when we returned to that hill, the golden sprinkles had been replaced by white tufty seed heads. I was sad that my golden delight was gone. Disappointment came in learning that the flowers had been hiding what the dandelion really was-an invasive and undisciplined weed. Those untamed seed heads would be captured by breezes and flow wherever the wind took it, a wild untamed nature it lives.

I hid the ache for another bright crown.

Dandelions, like most weeds, can be a soil robber. They look harmless while rooting deep into the earth and robbing the rest of the garden of needed hydrating nourishment. On the surface, they look like simple yellow flowers; but, under the surface, they are dwindling your harvest.

“But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then those of them whom you let remain shall be as barbs in your eyes and thorns in your sides, and they shall trouble you in the land where you dwell.“
Numbers‬ ‭33:55‬ ‭

God gives us amazing life lessons in nature. We can see how important the soil of our lives can be. What we nourish can flourish. What we leave untamed can take over the fields of our lives, carrying us with little purpose wherever the wind feels comfy to follow. If we don’t tame and remove the weeds, nourish our garden with Truth, our harvest can become dismal. The seed heads we release to the world become tainted with weeded toxicity.

We’re all knit tightly woven by our humanity, held tight by the air we breath and the realness pulsating through our veins. Nourished in scripture, we can humbly exhale grace to a world that desperately aches and simultaneously seeks life and beauty.