...down 'n' dirty

Getting down on your hands and knees is what it's all about. Getting your jeans dirty. Getting dirt under your fingernails. Getting wild, ratty hair blowing around in the breeze. It's not a pretty position for a 40-something woman, but it's necessary if I'm going to do a good job. Getting close to the ground is the best way to distinguish a seedling from a weedling, and that's what I've set out to do today, "pull out the tares from amongst the wheat," so to speak. It's a tricky business because weeds try to look like the very plant they are trying to choke out.

I could get the hoe out and stay cleaner and whack weeds down in a hurry, but I'd take out a lot of seedlings in the process. I could get out the Round-up spray bottle, but I always manage to spray something I didn't mean to, and that's really depressing. The best way is the dirtiest way -- down on my knees, getting close enough to really see, being very discerning and careful. It doesn't seem like such a big deal -- pulling some weeds -- but it's what I have set out to do today, and God was in it.



"We have the idea that God is going to do some exceptional thing, that He is preparing and fitting us for some extraordinary thing by and by, but as we go on in grace we find that God is glorifying Himself here and now, in the present minute. If we have God's say-so behind us, the most amazing strength comes, and we learn to sing in the ordinary days and ways."
~My Utmost for His Highest (June 4)

"For He hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee."
~Hebrews 13:5