UNINVITED GUEST
PRACTICE: Do you have an unwanted practice/habit that you want to break?
To write this piece, I choose a spot on the deck that gave me a bird’s eye view of a thick green leafy plant in one of my flowerpots. It shares the space with three other plants. The three others were intentionally planted – the green leafy plant was not - it is an uninvited guest. However, it does manage to look like it belongs and adds a certain beauty to the pot. The uninvited guest is not a stranger.
We met at a garden shop eight plus years ago. I was captivated by its unusual green color and the picture of the future bloom looked lovely. The attached label said it was a hardy annual and thrived in eight plus hours of daily sun…the perfect companion for the other blooming plants along the sidewalk to the front door. So, several pots were purchased, transported and transplanted in the designated location. The desired outcome was all that we had hoped it would be, although pop-up seedlings appeared in other places necessitating constant surveillance and removal. At the end of the season, it was decided that the lovely plant (an annual) would not be invited back to our yard. Fast forward to the next spring…the plant was back and completely consumed the growing area. It has a little corolla filled with very fine seeds that spread easily and grow wherever they land. Fast forward to the next spring – we mulched the area and didn’t plant anything. The plant appeared anyway. We have never completely eradicated the plant as evidenced by the flowerpot on the deck. Every year, this tenacious, hardy annual shows up somewhere in our yard. What was advertised as an annual has in fact become perennial.
What we have learned is how to control the plant so that it does not consume our yard. As soon as it is spotted, it is pulled out of the soil. If I should miss one and a corolla forms, it is snipped and thrown in the trash. This annual has proven it can’t be trusted to stay where it is planted. It has proven that it is capable and will choke out the plants that I want to grow and flourish. It has proven that I am incapable of totally eradicating it from my yard. I have proven that I recognize its potential to takeover. I have proven to the plant that with careful monitoring, I can curb its ability to spread …that I am in control of my destiny. Where do you see yourself in the story?
James 1:12
PONDER THIS THOUGHTS – Some bad habits can’t be eradicated but can be controlled with discipline.
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