This morning, Daddy stayed home to play with Samuel. We ended up outside in the garden, picking weeds. I am a genius at making work seem like fun.. Er, fun seem like work?? Anyway, weeds were pulled and I was not arrested for child labor.

The weeds weren’t really all that big, but it’s amazing to me how strong those little suckers are, how deep their roots go, how much work it takes to get them out.

In college, I remember lamenting to a friend that, although I felt I was honestly pursuing God, I just couldn’t get over how much yuck there still was in my heart. It seemed to me at the time that the more I sought God, the more stuff I found that needed killing off. My friend remarked that if my heart was like soil, God was just doing the hard work or rooting up weeds, that He was digging deep and showing me what needed to change, or just die.

It’s a good thought. Just like those little weeds in our garden today, it takes work and persistence to get rid of those sins and bad habits the literally suck the life out of us. God speed it.

Jesus, tender lover of my soul
Pardoner of my sins and friend indeed
Keeper of the garden of my heart
Jesus, Thou are everything to me
- Edward Henry Joy (SASB #600)