It was hotter than it should have been for that day as my daughter and I were evaluating the state of our lawn. We walked hand in hand, barefoot in the tall grass, and I bent down to pull up a weed. Ellie looked at me with an expression of outrage that belied her age.
“Mommy, why you pull that up?”
“Because it’s a weed, honey.” My fingers reached over and over again into the warm earth as my thoughts drifted elsewhere. I thought about what I was going to make for dinner, what time I needed to wake up the baby, where my lost car keys could have gone, and many other seemingly important questions. I felt a tug at the back of my shirt and shifted my focus.
“Hi, Ellie. What do you need, honey?”
“What’s a weed?” The curious blue eyes were searching me, waiting for an answer that would clarify why mommy was tearing up the yard that daddy had been working so hard on this summer.
“Oh baby, a weed is not a good thing. It is going to try and kill all of our grass.” I tried to read her face to see if this explanation satisfied her. I imagined it would; at the tender age of three and a half, she had already become my rule-enforcer, my child of justice, the one who always pointed out the color of upcoming traffic lights as we drove and corrected children on the playground for using “potty talk.”
Her eyes widened and she crouched down, eye to eye with the killer weeds. An air of righteousness overtook her, as she said in her sternest voice,
“Oh dear. You are trying to kill grass. Naughty, naughty.” She tipped her chin back to look at me, the sun flooding her face, and she smiled the smile that meant, “I took care of it.” I patted her fiery red head.
“Thanks Ellie. Now run along and play.” I watched as she dusted the dirt cautiously from her knees and shifted her hair out of her face. As she started walking towards her twin sister, she announced,
“Abby, those weeds are trying to kill something. We gotta get ‘em.” Abby, more similar to Ellie in looks than moral reasoning, turned briefly and gave a supportive horrified look to show Ellie she had heard the news. Then she went back to drinking water from the sprinkler while doing what looked to be a choreographed frenzy of joy.
The next day, Ellie approached me while I was sitting in the yard, watching the sun set in the trees behind out house. My heart was heavy with the gravity of daily life, and as she always did, Ellie sensed that something was not right.
“Mommy, why you feeling that?” Her choice of words took me off guard; I myself unable to identify the “that” in what I was feeling. Her tiny, sweaty hand ran along my arm and I looked into a deep place in her, replying gently,
“Today mommy is feeling kind of down. It‘s alright, mommy is ok. Just thinking about things.” I didn’t want her to feel my burden, so instead of letting my thoughts get the better of me, I began to tickle her and roll her around in the hot grass. A look of shock came over her and I pulled my arms back, trying to imagine what could have upset her.
“Baby, are you ok? Did mommy hurt you?” Her eyes were looking over my head and I tried to follow her gaze.
“No. I think I see a wicked. I gonna get it.” Arms on hips, she walked a few steps from where we were, her tiny sneakers carving a path of determination. She lowered her body deliberately and pointed at a weed that was towering over the grass.
“Look.” She turned to see what effect her discovery would have on me. Assured that I had seen the problem, she clarified her concern.
“Is that a wicked or a grass?”
Where she heard the word wicked in reference to a weed, I don’t know, but I do know that there was great importance in the elimination of the correct green species in our yard. God forbid she should pull up a piece of healthy grass!
What a funny little girl, I thought, and then I realized something . To the three year old eye, and maybe even to the thirty year old eye, weeds and grass look very similar. Same color, same feeling, same texture.
In fact, I realized that the “wicked” and the grass were only discernibly different to me because I had seen them for enough years to know the difference. I looked down into red cheeks and pursed lips.
“That’s a weed.” She gave a nod of supportive confirmation and turned toward the little green enemy.
“Hmm. You tryin’ to kill something?” She interrogated the weed, either out of a sense of power over it or a sense of unease about what was to come next. She looked at me one more time, waiting for me to tell her, as I do several times each day, that this was not a good choice. My silence must have been translated as permission, and she reached, gently, to touch the weed.
But instead of pulling the whole thing out, she touched the tiny leaves of the “wicked,” and pulled it just enough to remove a sliver. She discarded it quickly and reached in for more. I watched as she did this several times, not at all put out by the fact that she appeared to be doing very little to stop the killer weeds that were threatening our grass as we knew it.
It was at this moment, as I sat beside her in the grass, that I realized God was teaching me more than proper lawn care. I thought about how many times, even in a day, I reach to pull the “wicked” one leaf at a time, and all the while it is growing bigger and stronger all around me. I am seasoned enough in my walk to identify the weeds in my life, and much too tentative at removing them.
I sat and stared at my Ellie, so much like her mommy in so many ways, as she delicately plucked leaf from leaf. I wanted her to learn more from the moment, as I had, and so I put my fingers around hers, noticing that we both had dirt under our fingernails. I moved her hands away and took firm grip on the base of the weed.
“Here, let me show you.” I jiggled it as I went to make sure the root came up as well. Side to side, delicately at first, and then when I sensed it would come up in one whole piece, I tugged it out in one quick motion.
Ellie marveled at the long roots dangling down and the gap left in our ground.
"See how mommy got the whole thing? You want me to help you learn?” She nodded and I pointed to another weed a few feet away. She rose confidently and approached the “wicked” with a new realization: I know your secret.
We spend the next hour walking side by side, saying very little, rejoicing in the holes that were cropping up all over daddy’s lawn. For both of us, there was a sense that they were a small price to pay for the greater good.
We both got better as we went along, learning the way different weeds come up out of the dirt. Some are long and skinny, and those just take one good pull. Others are leafy and the roots are stubborn.. Sometimes you have to dig all around it and tug gently. We became a great team.
As the waning sun looked down on us that Thursday night, I learned something about the boldness we should claim in approaching our sin. We kneel, we face it eye to eye, we clarify that it is not of our Lord, and then, in utter confidence, we grasp it by its strongest point and destroy it. We don’t have to do it alone, and we don’t have to do it in fear.
We are tended to by the great Gardener Himself, whose deepest longings are met as we walk in the joy of gaping holes that He can pour Himself into and raise anew.
I pray that you learn to be bold with the sins you face in your life, not as one who fears the gardening, but as one whose desire to be holy, blameless and pure as they sense their Father beckoning them through the grass.
About the Author
Angie is the proud wife of Todd Smith of Selah, and the blessed mommy to Abby and Ellie (6), Kate (3), and Audrey Caroline, who passed away the day she was born...
