Friday, October 20, 2017

Look to the Weeds



When life is not coming up roses
Look to the weeds
and find the beauty hidden within them.”

L.F.Young

 

Photo © 2017 C. Castle

 

The other day I was searching for a rose quote to go with some of my rose pictures for a garden post I was planning. My objective was to talk about the lovely scents, beauty, and joy roses can contribute to one’s garden. Instead, I found this quote about weeds. The phrase “finds the beauty hidden within them”—them being weeds—stuck with me.

 Beauty in weeds? That almost sounds like an oxymoron: two contradictory elements put together. After all, what gardener, or non-gardener even, thinks weeds are beautiful? Isn’t a smooth, manicured expanse of green grass much more pleasing than a lawn filled with lumpy and unruly weeds?

 But the author of this quote was on to something that we often forget when we’re in the midst of troubles and trials. Even weeds have a purpose, and in many cases the blooms on a weed are as beautiful as our prized flowers.

 s a gardener I must confess that I don’t like weeds very much. They muck up my nice flowerbeds. Grow in places that are hard to weed, and they are difficult to eradicate. It’s also a losing battle to keep the weeds in my garden from blooming. A single blossom can result in hundreds or thousands more weeds. But when I haven’t yanked them out I have found some beautiful surprises—both physical and spiritual.

 For example—The most common of weeds in any gardener’s yard is the lowly dandelion. Gardeners ruthlessly eradicate them, splashing poisonous herbicides across the lawn. But perhaps we should stop and reconsider our actions. This hated weed can serve a purpose. The leaves are edible as salad greens, as long as you haven’t sprayed chemicals on them. If I were starving in a forest, the dandelion is the one plant I could recognize and eat. I’d consider that a hidden beauty if I were hungry enough to forage for food in the wild.

A bunch of these cheery yellow flowers clutched in a small hand and presented to you as a gift is a bouquet that never fades from your memory. I remember all the nosegays my daughter picked for me and the pride with which she delivered her weedy gift. In her childish vision, she recognized beauty where I saw none. Something we adults need to rediscover.

When you carefully pluck the dandelion’s fragile, cottony seed head and tell your child to blow and make a wish—spreading the tiny seeds to the wind—you create an experience you both will remember all your lives. Trust me, the watching a thousand seeds float into your lawn is worth the joyful giggles you’ll hear as your child chases the drifting seeds around the yard.

This is just one example of how the lowly weed can be a blessing. I’m sure if you think about the weeds in your life, and the playful things you’ve done with weeds in the garden, you can find the hidden blessing in weeds.

As the literal weed can unwitting be a blessing, so can the figurative weed mentioned in the opening quote of this post. So the next time your life isn’t coming up roses, consider the weeds and why they grow. That weed in your garden’s life, that you hate or don’t think you can bear, may contain a lesson you need to learn, an example you need to set or see, or a blessing to discover in the midst of the turmoil. While you are looking for those hidden blessings, remember that “…for those who love God all things work together for good….” Romans 8:28 

Do you have a hidden weed blessing in your life?

Don’t forget to leave a comment to get your name in the drawing for Grafted into Deceit by Sherri Wilson Johnson! Sherri will be giving away two copies of her book. Winner will be announced in the October 30th issue of the Weekly Windup.


About the Author:

Catherine Castle is the author of the multi-award-winning inspirational suspense romance, The Nun and the Narc, and the sweet romantic comedy, A Groom for Mama. Catherine loves writing, reading, traveling, singing, watching movies, and the theatre. In the winter she quilts and has a lot of UFOs (unfinished objects) in her sewing case. In the summer her favorite place is in her garden. She’s a passionate gardener who won a “Best Hillside Garden” award from the local gardening club. 

Her debut inspiration romantic suspense, The Nun and the Narc, from Soul Mate Publishing was an ACFW Genesis Finalist, a 2014 EPIC finalist, and the winner of the 2014 Beverly Hills Book Award and the 2014 RONE Award. Her most recent release, A Groom for Mama, is a sweet romantic comedy from Soul Mate Publishing.  Both books are available on Amazon.

 

 

10 comments:

  1. Weeds are annoying but like you mentioned they have a purpose for food and medical uses from the past. The blooms on some are beautiful and a variety together in bloom can create a beautiful vintage arrangement from the past.

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    1. I had some horse nettle that managed to get to the bloom stage. It has a gorgeous star-shaped flower. Thanks for the thought.

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  2. We were farmers for many years and weeds were something we always fought in our crops but during this time of farming, milking cows and raising my daughter, I had no time to plant and care for many flowers so those weeds were often my source of colorful blooms. I have often cut blue blooms, Queen Irish lace, and the cattails that grew along the line and arranged them in a vase. Certainly not worthy of a ribbon from the Garden Club but it was a pretty arrangement! And just a few weeks ago my 3 1/2 year old granddaughter and I gathered Queen Irish Lace and put it in 2 different jars of water diluted with blue and red food coloring. She loved seeing the blooms change color.
    Thanks for an enjoyable post!

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  3. I love Queen Anne's lace, but never heard of queen Irish lace. I'll have to look that up and try the dying process on the next QA lace that pops up in my yard. I never thought about dying it. Thanks for commenting.

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    1. Catherine, I apologize! It IS Queen Anne's Lace, not Queen Irish. Sorry to send you on a wild goose chase or perhaps wild weed chase!!

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  4. There are some weeds that have beautiful flowers but looks can be deceiving. Thank you for sharing your wonderful post.

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  5. Good point for a whole 'nother devotion. Take Queen Anne's Lace and hemlock for instance. Queen Anne's Lace is edible. Hemlock is poisonous_ even touching poisonous hemlock can give you a nasty rash. But to the untrained eye their blooms look alike. Thanks for that observation.

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  6. My hidden weed blessing would be my husband. As the saying goes, you have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find your Prince Charming.
    Thanks for entering me in your giveaway.
    Janet E.
    von1janet(at)gmail(dot)com

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  7. LOL. I like that hidden blessing! Thanks for coming by.

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  8. Just put up a blog on my website about milkweed - our 12 year-old granddaughter had such a fun time the other day discovering the joys of the wispy, glistening, airy floss of the plant. And the World War II use of it was downright amazing...

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