(It’s been a while since I’ve written – thought I’d return with the blog I wrote for Frontline this week – www.frontlinedc.com.)
Six years ago I planted these beautiful mums in my front flowerbed. They came back the next summer looking just as nice, but in the third spring I decided it was time for these mums to go – they were taking over. So I pulled them out – roots and all. Fall came when mums are due to grow and there they were. So I pulled them out again – roots and all. Spring came – grow, overtake, pull – repeat. This has been going on for three years. I have laughed and jokingly screamed at them each time they reappear. I have pulled those mums out by their roots 6 times, or so I thought….
For me, these mums in my garden represent the ups and downs of growing up as a woman after God’s own heart. Sometimes there are a lot of healthy roots and sometimes there are unhealthy roots that are just lying in wait there – annoying me or suffocating healthy growth. Sometimes they take over. So each time I dig the mums up, I remember that digging up really does go with the idea of growing into the woman God has instructed each of us to be.
In digging up I find that things are revealed – after all its pruning by the Father. Sometimes He reveals to me that the roots are good healthy roots — roots in the Word, roots of biblical community, roots of struggle that have been replaced by His forgiveness, grace, love, and so on. However, as in the case of my never-ending mums, sometimes they are painful, ugly and/or disconcerting roots that run deep and won’t go away. I call these the “ugly, good grief, do I have to face that ‘root’.”
These roots, whether painful, ugly or both, can easily lead to stubbornness which can lead to the “I can do it all by myself” attitude which almost always leads to discontentment. I don’t know about you, but I get entangled in these messy, painful, ugly roots, tripping over my own feet. The older I get, the longer I stay single, the more independent I become. I catch myself often in the struggle of doing life completely alone. I mean trying to deal with it alone, because, I can come through it, “I always do.” (I wish you could hear the dripping sarcasm in my voice.) I always do… it is in those moments that my control wins and in the long run, I’m really not in a better place – just more independent or more closed off because the pain hurts too much to face. It’s then I know it really means greater stubbornness and much less surrendering – ugly or painful roots that have not been properly uprooted.
As I shake my head and pull out these stubborn mums for the 7th time this past weekend, I begin to cry. Oh, I hate practical lessons sometimes – because clearly there is a lesson to be learned in my flowerbed of life – which is just a mess at the moment. I realize I’m just pulling at this mess and it is not enough.
This mess has revealed that, as Todd discussed during his message, I have spent the past year numb. I don’t know about you, but I sat in the auditorium dumbfounded when he said, “what we tend to do is look back at that circumstance and somehow emotionally shut ourselves off from the pain. We’ll compartmentalize those things in our lives, shut ourselves off. Here’s the problem. The same thing you have to shut off your pain in your brain is the same thing you shut off to shut off the pleasure and the joy. And all of a sudden you wake up one day, and you’re numb. All the control has changed nothing. You no longer hurt, you no longer feel the pain. But the joy is gone too. And the best thing to describe you is numbness. That’s not the way God planned you to live.”
Honestly, he hit a nerve. Was anyone else in the auditorium or was it just me that needed the lesson?
In my nature, I want to take these frustrations, pain, hurts and issues that I resolved and just make them go away. I’ve spent years trying to do that – the independent woman, of course – and now my pastor tells me I’m just numb, that all this controlling of my pain and hurts didn’t help and my joy is fading too. Really, Todd, really?!!
Then, just to bring the point home that maybe my own numbness needs to stop, a precious friend of mine, unknowingly, used the same analogy of digging to the roots of discontentment and stubbornness and well, the tears began to flow and haven’t quite stopped. “Ok God, I’m listening.” And His Word refreshes my mind immediately in these passages:
“Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” Psalm 139:23-24
“I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” John 15:5
I love the Word and how if offers the good news. I remember I must dig down, uncover, and literally uproot every piece of it in order to get rid of the numbness completely. I can then begin to feel again. I remember I do not have to do it alone, in knowing God and His Word and living it out, I have the key. I can surrender the stubbornness, daily, and praise the Lord He is a God of multiple chances! I love the reminders all throughout scripture of second chances – surrender, my friend, surrender the stubbornness and the numbness. Dig up to the deepest roots of discontentment.
Remember, roots grow and bloom. They may be pretty on the outside, but some are not deep down. The blooms are the outpouring of the roots. If it’s a root firmly planted in a healthy, growing relationship with the Lord, the blooms are amazing, not always easy, but amazing. If the bloom is painful or ugly, there are roots I am still facing with the Lord.
We must uproot the independence and the pain and let the roots of God’s Word grow deep so that the blooms flourish in truth. Instead of trying to perform the lists in Titus 2:4-5 and Proverbs 31 be transformed by the word of God so those characteristics flow through us. We must be, as the Proverbs 31 woman is:
- Clothed with strength and dignity
- Laugh at the days to come
- Speak with wisdom and give faithful instruction
- Watch over the affairs of her household (and single life) and
- Not eating the bread of idleness
These verses remind me – I cannot – CANNOT – do this without full surrender, without knowing God. And the only way I’m going to get there is to be willing to dig down deep, spread away the unhealthy or painful dirt and worms (and ugliness) and deal with the roots of discontent. Only then will each and every bloom be one that represents true biblical womanhood.
